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Soybean susceptibility to manufactured nanomaterials with evidence for food quality and soil fertility interruption
Link to Journal Abstract
Based on previously published hydroponic plant, planktonic bacterial, and soil microbial community research, manufactured nanomaterial (MNM) environmental buildup could profoundly alter soil-based food crop quality and yield. However, thus far, no single study has at once examined the full implications, as no studies have involved growing plants to full maturity in MNM-contaminated field soil. We have done so for soybean, a major global commodity crop, using farm soil amended with two high-production metal oxide MNMs (nano-CeO2 and -ZnO). The results provide a clear, but unfortunate, view of what could arise over the long term: (i) for nano-ZnO, component metal was taken up and distributed throughout edible plant tissues; (ii) for nano-CeO2, plant growth and yield diminished, but also (iii) nitrogen fixation—a major ecosystem service of leguminous crops—was shut down at high nano-CeO2 concentration. Juxtaposed against widespread land application of wastewater treatment biosolids to food crops, these findings forewarn of agriculturally associated human and environmental risks from the accelerating use of MNMs.
This study involved growing plants to full maturity in manufactured nanomaterial (MNM)-contaminated field soil. Soybean, a major global commodity crop, was used in farm soil amended with two high-production metal oxide MNMs (nano-CeO2 and -ZnO).
Peer Reviewed Journal Article
Exposure Or Hazard Target
Method Of Study
Environmental Fate and Transport
Risk Exposure Group
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012, 109(37): E2451-E2456
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Priester JH, Ge Y, Mielke RE, Horst AM, Moritz SC, Espinosa K, Gelb J, Walker SL, Nisbet RM, An YJ, Schimel JP, Palmer RG, Hernandez-Viezcas JA, Zhao L, Gardea-Torresdey JL, Holden PA
Last updated on February 1, 2013
This work is supported in part by the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Initiative of the National Science Foundation
under NSF Award Number EEC-0118007.
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