Plants diversity and phytoaccumulators identification on the Akouedo landfill (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire)

Abstract

Phytoremediation is an emerging technology to remediate contaminated soils. Their implementation in developing countries may be limited by the plant species used. To overcome this situation, plants from the Akouedo landfill have been inventoried in order to identify indigenous plants adapted to soil and environmental conditions. Two sampling zones have been defined, based on the waste dumping activities or not. Four plots (50 × 50 m²) have been defined. The plant species collected were used to constitute vouchers for identification. Plants frequency occurrence was used to evaluate their relative importance, while the Shannon and evenness indices were calculated to characterize the diversity. The plant families and species identified were compared to those described as heavy metals phytoaccumulators in the literature. A total of 130 taxa belonging to 39 families have been recorded. The most frequent families (36.9% of the total taxa) were Poaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Cyperaceae. The dominant taxa on the old waste dumpsite having an average density superior to 5 plants/m² and occurring less frequently on the control site were Alternanthera sessilis, Amaranthus spinosus, Cyperus rotundus, Cyperus iria, Eleusine indica, Euphorbia glomerifera, Ipomoea triloba, Portulaca oleracea and Trianthema portulacastrum. These plant species may be indigenous phytoaccumulators on the Akouedo landfill.

Keywords: Heavy metals, landfill, phytoaccumulators, phytoremediation, plants

African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(3), pp. 253-264