Phytoremediation of soil contaminated by heavy oil with plants colonized by mycorrhizal fungi

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of phytoremediation on soils contaminated with heavy crude oil using plants infected by mycorrhizal fungi. Five plant species, Vetiveria zizanioides, Bidens pilosa, Chloris barbata, Eleusine indica, and Imperata cylindrica, infected with the species of mycorrhizal fungi Glomus mosseae, were selected for this study. The degradation of total petroleum hydrocarbons in soils and several physiological parameters of plants such as shoot length and biomass were analyzed. Out of the 5 plant species tested, only V. zizanioides, B. pilosa, and E. indica could take up the G. mosseae. Out of these three, V. zizanioides showed the greatest growth (biomass) in soils with 100,000 mg kg−1 total petroleum hydrocarbons. In addition, B. pilosa infected with G. mosseae was found to be able to increase degradation by 9 % under an initial total petroleum hydrocarbons concentration of 30,000 mg kg−1 in soils after 64 days. We conclude that plants infected with mycorrhizal fungi can enhance the phytoremediation efficiency of soils contaminated with high concentrations of heavy oil.