Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) phytoremediation references

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I've recently found a few more references using Limnobium laevigatum in wastewater treatment.

Because Limnobium is my preferred "Duckweed" for the <"Duckweed Index">, I thought I'd start a thread. Because it is a thread I've started I should be able to add any new references that I find.

Aponte, H. & Pacherres, C. (2013) <"Growth and propagation of Limnobium laevigatum (Hydrocharitaceae) under different nutrient concentrations">
The Biologist, 11:1, 69-78.

Arán, D.S., Harguinteguy, C.A., Fernandez-Cirelli, A. et al. (2017) <"Phytoextraction of Pb, Cr, Ni, and Zn using the aquatic plant Limnobium laevigatum and its potential use in the treatment of wastewater."> Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 18295–18308.

Fernández San Juan, M.R., Albornoz, C.B., Larsen, K. et al. (2018) <"Bioaccumulation of heavy metals in Limnobium laevigatum and Ludwigia peploides: their phytoremediation potential in water contaminated with heavy metals">. Environ Earth Sci 77, 404.

Winton, R.S., Kleinschroth, F., Calamita, E. et al. (2020) <"Potential of aquatic weeds to improve water quality in natural waterways of the Zambezi catchment">. Sci Rep 10, 15467. (This is principally an Eichornia paper)

Sudiarto, S., Renggaman, A. & Choi, H. (2019) <"Floating aquatic plants for total nitrogen and phosphorus removal from treated swine wastewater and their biomass characteristics"> Journal of Environmental Management 231 pp 763-769


Fig. 3. Initial (A) and final (B) appearance of floating plants in the E-10 treatment (upper pictures) and H-0.5 treatment (lower pictures). From the left to right (Lemna sp, Pistia stratiotes, Echornia crassipes, Limnobium Laevigatum). E10 = 10% swine Effluent, H0.5 1/2 strength Hoagland's solution.

Kabutey, F., Ding, J. et al. (2019) <"Pollutant removal and bioelectricity generation from urban river sediment using a macrophyte cathode sediment microbial fuel cell (mSMFC)">. Bioelectrochemistry 128, pp. 241-251

Aponte, H. (2017). <"Productivity of Limnobium laevigatum (Hydrocharitaceae) under laboratory conditions">. Polibotánica. 157-166.

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
These two aren't specifically about Limnobium laevigatum, but are reviews of the plants used in phytoremediation (for a wide range of pollutants) in wastewater:

Hauwa M. Mustafa, Gasim Hayder, (2021) <"Recent studies on applications of aquatic weed plants in phytoremediation of wastewater: A review article">, Ain Shams Engineering Journal, 12:1, pp. 355-365.

Palomino Seguil, Y. et al. (2022) <"Systematic Review of the Efficiency of Aquatic Plants in the Wastewater Treatment"> 9th International Conference on Environment Pollution and Prevention.

cheers Darrel

 

[tiger15]

A limitation of using Frogbit for photo remediation is that it is a tropical plant that won’t grow in temperate zone in cool seasons, In my window sill planted bowl, Frogbit , Water Lettuce and red root floater go through cycle of vigorous growth in summer and decline in winter even though room temp in winter never drops below 17C. Salvia is the only floater that continue to grow in winter in my heated room. I know Water Hyacinth is used in waste water treatment in subtropical Florida but not up north in US, so Frogbit has no chance of success..

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

A limitation of using Frogbit for photo remediation is that it is a tropical plant that won’t grow in temperate zone in cool seasons

Yes, <"that is right">. It is a tropical plant and adapted to <"high temperatures and intense light">. That was one reason for <"starting with Duckweed (Lemna minor)">, it is cold tolerant.

in winter even though room temp in winter never drops below 17C. Salvia is the only floater that continue to grow in winter in my heated room. I know Water Hyacinth is used in waste water treatment in subtropical Florida but not up north in US, so Frogbit has no chance of success..

Additional light might help. Water Hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes) is the preferred choice for phytoremediation where you can grow it, but it is a real <"turned up to eleven plant">.

cheers Darrel

 

[sparkyweasel]

There are European and North American Frogbits as well as Amazon Frogbit. 🙂

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
A couple more, partially in light of the questions in <"Filtration load capacity"> not all of them entirely about Limnobium laevigatum.

• <"Sustainable livestock wastewater treatment via phytoremediation: Current status and future perspectives">Hao Hu, Xiang Li, Shaohua Wu, Chunping Yang, (2020)
  Sustainable livestock wastewater treatment via phytoremediation: Current status and future perspectives, Bioresource Technology, 315
• <"Efficiency and plant indication of nitrogen and phosphorus removal in constructed wetlands: A field-scale study in a frost-free area">
  Weifeng Ruan, Hongbo Cai, Xiaomin Xu, Ying Man, Rui Wang, Yiping Tai, Zhongbing Chen, Jan Vymazal, Juexin Chen, Yang Yang, Xiaomeng Zhang, (2021)
  "Efficiency and plant indication of nitrogen and phosphorus removal in constructed wetlands: A field-scale study in a frost-free area", Science of The Total Environment, 799

cheers Darrel

 

[Oldguy]

There are European and North American Frogbits as well as Amazon Frogbit

Have the UK Frogbit in the garden pond. Its a nice plant but prone to be removed in the end of season cut back and clearance. This will be its second winter in the pond.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Another one, this one looks at Pistia stratiotes, <"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213343720304504">
Kundan Samal, Shivanshi Trivedi, (2020) "A statistical and kinetic approach to develop a Floating Bed for the treatment of wastewater,"
Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, 8:5

It isn't a great paper, but the plant / microbe bit is quite interesting.

.......... Roots provide maximum surface area for the development of microbial colony and also release oxygen, which maintains the aerobic/anoxic condition in water. Microbes slowly grow on root surface and form a slimy layer called biofilm. Roots also release sugar, vitamin and different root exudates (citrate, oxalate, malate, amino acid, etc), which act as carbon source for microbes and stimulate their growth [27,28]. All the dissolved organic matter present in water directly uptake by plant through roots. Suspended organics and solids attached to the biofilm and degrade aerobically by microbes. Microbes present in the biofilm utilize the attached organic as their food source and release CO2, H2O as byproducts [5]. As the time progress, bacteria, algae, fungi present in biofilm proliferate and makes the slime layer more thicker and enhance biodegradation process [29,30]. Fig. 3 shows the mechanism of FB for pollutants removal and Fig. 4 shows the under water root system of Pistia stratiotes. In the whole experiments COD removal varied from 78.4 % to 95.8 % in different experimental runs and maximum removal was observed in run 14, when initial COD concentration was 500 mg L-1 ...........

cheers Darrel

 

[Tim Harrison]

Plants are awesome, period. And not bad bioremediators either.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Madsen, J.D. and Morgan, C.M., (2021). "Water temperature controls the growth of water hyacinth and South American sponge plant". J. Aquat. Plant Manag. , 31 pp.28-32. <"https://www.researchgate.net/profil...rhyacinth-and-South-American-sponge-plant.pdf">

We examined the effect of water temperature on the growth of two free-floating aquatic species in this study: water hyacinth [Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms] and sponge plant [Limnobium laevigatum (Humb. & Bonpl. Ex Willd.) Heine]. Water hyacinth has been rated as the worst aquatic weed worldwide. ...... Sponge plant, native to southern Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, was first detected in California in 2003. We studied the growth of these two species with two 6-wk growth studies (for each species), at water temperatures of 15, 20, 25, and 30 C. All temperatures were replicated in four tanks, for a total of 16 tanks. Waterhyacinth biomass was over 2,000 g dry weight (DW) m2 for plants grown at 25 and 30 C by 42 d after start (DAS). Waterhyacinth density reached almost 800 rosettes m2 at 42 DAS at 25 and 30 C. Waterhyacinth relative growth rate (RGR) reached 0.099 d1 , for a doubling time of 7.0 d. Sponge plant biomass at42 DAS was 400 g DW m2 at 25 and 30 C. Density was as high as 3,900 rosettes m2 at 42 DAS grown at 25 C. Sponge plant RGR was 0.12 d1 at 25 C, for a doubling time of 5.7 d. The invasive potential of sponge plant has been demonstrated in this study.

cheers Darrel.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Not specifically for Limnobium laevigatum, but a paper looking at <"plant / root microbe"> interactions in Lemna minor (my original "duckweed"):

Makino, A., Nakai, R., Yoneda, Y., Toyama, T., Tanaka, Y., Meng, X.Y., Mori, K., Ike, M., Morikawa, M., Kamagata, Y. and Tamaki, H., (2022). "Isolation of aquatic plant growth-promoting bacteria for the floating plant duckweed (Lemna minor)." Microorganisms, 10(8), p.1564.
<"Isolation of Aquatic Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria for the Floating Plant Duckweed (Lemna minor)">.

Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) can exert beneficial growth effects on their host plants. Little is known about the phylogeny and growth-promoting mechanisms of PGPB associated with aquatic plants ......... Here, we report four novel aquatic PGPB strains, MRB1–4 (NITE P-01645–P-01648), for duckweed Lemna minor from our rhizobacterial collection isolated from Lythrum anceps. The number of L. minor fronds during 14 days co-culture with the strains MRB1–4 increased by 2.1–3.8-fold, compared with an uninoculated control; the plant biomass and chlorophyll content in co-cultures also increased. Moreover, all strains possessed an indole-3-acetic acid production trait in common with a plant growth-promoting trait of terrestrial PGPB. Phylogenetic analysis showed that three strains, MRB-1, -3, and -4, were affiliated with known proteobacterial genera (Bradyrhizobium and Pelomonas); this report is the first to describe a plant-growth promoting activity of Pelomonas members. The gammaproteobacterial strain MRB2 was suggested to be phylogenetically novel at the genus level. Under microscopic observation, the Pelomonas strain MRB3 was epiphytic and adhered to both the root surfaces and fronds of duckweed. The duckweed PGPB obtained here could serve as a new model for understanding unforeseen mechanisms behind aquatic plant-microbe interactions.

Figure 2. Growth-promotion effects of the obtained strains MRB1–4 on duckweed fronds after co-cultivation. The photographs show (a) aseptic duckweed, and aseptic duckweed co-cultured on day 14 with (b) Acinetobacter calcoaceticus P23, a known PGPB, as a positive control strain, or with our strains (c) MRB1, (d) MRB2, (e) MRB3, and (f) MRB4. The typical light-colored daughter fronds are indicated by white arrows.

"The typical light-colored daughter fronds are indicated by white arrows" is quite interesting, and may suggest that the bacteria strains, that have positively enhanced plant growth, may be associated with improved iron (Fe) uptake <"Siderophore - Wikipedia">.* Edit

*Edit This actually gets a mention, although there isn't a correlation between (lack of) siderophore activity and iron deficient leaves.

3.3. Characterization of Plant Growth-Promoting Properties​

........ The traits of siderophore production and phosphate solubilization varied among strains MRB1–4; this trend has also been observed in other PGPB for duckweeds (Table 2). Siderophore production activity was found in three strains, MRB-2, -3, and -4. Pelomonas strains MRB1 and MRB3 shared an identical 16S rRNA gene sequence, while only MRB3 was positive in the production assay. Siderophores produced by PGPB have attracted attention for their ability to enhance the solubility and plant-availability of oxidized ferric iron in the soil environments [76,77]. Similarly, since inorganic phosphorus is present in insoluble forms (e.g., di- and tri-calcium phosphates) [78], the phosphate solubilization by PGPB is also important in soils. All of our strains lacked solubilization ability in our solubilization assays, while Ishizawa et al. [22] demonstrated using the same medium as used in this study (mHoagland solution) that duckweed growth promotion slightly correlated only with the phosphate-solubilizing ability of bacterial isolates. Compared with soil environments, both iron and inorganic phosphorus are considered to be well solubilized in water, and their solubilization abilities by PGPB may not be crucial factors for the aquatic host growth promotion.
We further found that Pelomonas strains MRB1 and MRB3 possessed a key gene for nitrogen fixation (nifH) (Table 2). As mentioned above, the known P. saccharophila had a capacity to fix nitrogen gas [48]. The nifH gene sequences of MRB1 and MRB3 exhibited high amino acid identity (96.7–96.8%) with that of P. saccharophila (accession no. BAE15986). Strains MRB1 and MRB3 also showed growth in nitrogen-free medium. Note that the sequence of Bradyrhizobium strain MRB4 also showed a high identity (99.2%) to the nifH-like gene sequence of Bradyrhizobium betae (accession no. WP_151648738). Importantly, nitrogen fixation by Pelomonas and Bradyrhizobium species is reported to be stimulated under microaerobic conditions

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Another Lemna spp. (Duckweed) and microbe reference. This one is very interesting and looks at the effects of nutrient depletion:
Bunyoo, C., Roongsattham, P., Khumwan, S., Phonmakham, J., Wonnapinij, P. and Thamchaipenet, A., (2022). "Dynamic Alteration of Microbial Communities of Duckweeds from Nature to Nutrient-Deficient Condition". Plants, 11(21), p.2915.
<Dynamic Alteration of Microbial Communities of Duckweeds from Nature to Nutrient-Deficient Condition>.

......... A total of 24 microbial genera were identified as a core microbiome that presented in high abundance with consistent proportions across all duckweed subtypes. The most abundant microbes belonged to the genus Rhodobacter, followed by other common DAB, including Acinetobacter, Allorhizobium-Neorhizobium-Pararhizobium-Rhizobium, and Pseudomonas. After nutrient-deficient stress, diversity of microbial communities was significantly deceased. However, the relative abundance of Allorhizobium-Neorhizobium-Pararhizobium-Rhizobium, Pelomonas, Roseateles and Novosphingobium were significantly enhanced in stressed duckweeds. Functional prediction of the metagenome data displayed the relative abundance of essential pathways involved in DAB colonization, such as bacterial motility and biofilm formation, as well as biodegradable ability, such as benzoate degradation and nitrogen metabolism, were significantly enriched under stress condition. The findings improve the understanding of the complexity of duckweed microbiomes and facilitate the establishment of a stable microbiome used for co-cultivation with duckweeds for enhancement of biomass and phytoremediation under environmental stress.

• I'll guess that this is a very similar situation to that that <"occurs in all floating plants"> (including Limnobium laevigatum), and

........ Under nutrient-deficient stress, the core microbiomes were dynamically changed (Figure 5). Of those, the prominent genera consistently found in NC duckweeds, such as Rhodobacter and Acinetobacter, were significantly diminished under nutrient-deficient stress (Figure 5, Table S8). Interestingly, rare core microbiomes in the phylum Proteobacteria, including Roseateles, Sphingomonas, and Pelomonas, detected in NC duckweeds were greatly enhanced under SC treatments, followed by members in the phylum Firmicutes, such as Lactobacillus and Romboutsia (Figure 5, Table S8). In addition, the genus Allorhizobium-Neorhizobium-Pararhizobium-Rhizobium, which presented with high abundance in NC duckweeds, were increased under SC treatments .... Under stress conditions, the relative abundance of four pathways in cellular processes were significantly enriched, including bacterial chemotaxis, biofilm formation, flagellar assembly, and quorum sensing. The pathways involved in environmental information processing also displayed relative abundance enrichment, such as ABC transporters, bacterial secretion systems, and two-component systems. Furthermore, relative abundance of nitrogen metabolism related to plant growth, promoting function and benzoate degradation involved in biodegradation, were significantly increased.

• that the microbe diversity situation is very similar to the one reported for nitrifying organisms in biofilters <"The nitrifying microbes in aquariums and cycling">.

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
This last paper is from a special journal edition - <"Duckweed: Research Meets Applications">:
Oláh, V., Appenroth, K.J. and Sree, K.S., (2023). "Duckweed: Research Meets Applications". Plants, 12(18), p.3307.

From which I found <"Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture; Analysing Contributions of Different Biological Compartments to Nutrient Removal in a Duckweed-Based Water Remediation System">: Paolacci S, Stejskal V, Toner D, Jansen MAK (2022). "Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture; Analysing Contributions of Different Biological Compartments to Nutrient Removal in a Duckweed-Based Water Remediation System". Plants. 2022; 11(22) p.3103.

3.2. Nutrient Removal
The total volume of effluent treated by each tank in eight days was 1050 L. This volume, together with the cumulative differences in nutrient concentration between inflow and outflow water, allowed the calculation of the amount of dissolved N and P removed from the water. A total of 689.93 mg of nitrogen and 154.44 mg of phosphorus were removed from the aquaculture wastewater. These numbers were estimated from the difference between inflow and outflow water in unfiltered samples. The N removal rate varied between −0.16 and 2.63 mg·L−1·d−1, while the P removal rate varied between 0.05 and 0.64 mg·L−1·d−1........

This one also talks about the advantage of a floating plant (over microbes and phytoplankton) in terms of nutrient removal

......... However, in the long term, phytoplankton does not contribute to remediation as it cannot be easily removed from the water; hence, the nutrients will eventually be re-released into the water, nullifying the remediation process. In comparison, duckweed can be harvested, and if this is well managed, it can substantially contribute to the sequestration and removal of nutrients from aquaculture wastewater. This study confirms the phytoremediation ability of duckweed in aquaculture effluents; however, it also clearly shows that there is scope to further improve duckweed-based nutrient removal by impeding competing processes of algal growth and microbial activity.

cheers Darrel

 

[Krzysztof 82 (Kris)]

Hi all,

Thank you @dw1305 amazing findings, thank you for sharing.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

amazing findings, thank you for sharing.

I don't think there will be (m)any new Limnobium laevigatum phytoremediation papers that deal with nitrogenous wastes, purely because there has been enough research to hone in on the plants that give you most "bang for your buck".

I'm expecting that research will concentrate on <"Eichornia (Pontederia) crassipes and Pistia stratiotes"> in tropical regions <"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2215153223000053"> and Lemna spp. <"Duckweeds for Phytoremediation of Polluted Water"> in cooler areas.

The other plant that may get a bit of run-out is Azolla caroliniana <"ShieldSquare Captcha">, mainly because of its <"commensal nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria">.

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
This one isn't great, and doesn't look at Amazon Frogbit, but does look at Azolla and Salvinia.

Eder Carlos Lopes Coimbra, Alisson Carraro Borges, Ann H. Mounteer, Andra Pereira Rosa, (2023)
"Using wastewater treatment performance, biomass and physiological plant characteristics for selection of a floating macrophyte for phytoremediation of swine wastewater through the integrative Entropy-Fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS method",
Journal of Water Process Engineering, 53, <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214714423003124>

cheers Darrel