Phytomonitoring and phytoremediation of organic pollutants in the environment

Use of agrichemicals such as pesticides has played a dominant role in modern agricultural productivity. Some have been banned from use in different countries, however, after their selective toxicity to non-target organisms was revealed. For example, many dioxin-like compounds including polychlorinated biphenyls are very hydrophobic and persistent in soils.

Many industries and other anthropogenic activities have also added numerous diverse organic pollutants to the environment. For example, discharge of dyestuffs in waterways from textile manufacturing, crude petroleum and diesel oil contamination, and disposal of excess/waste pharmaceuticals are of concern. It is necessary to monitor and remediate soil and water ecosystems contaminated with polluting organic chemicals.

Clearly, it is of great interest for investigations to gain a better understanding of the response of plants to diverse organic environmental pollutants. With this mind, the aim of this Research Topic is to encourage contributions towards the goal of improving the use of plants for monitoring, remediation and minimizing uptake into food plants of environmental pollutants.

Submission of manuscripts (original research, theories and opinions, mini reviews and reviews) are warmly welcome. In particular, this Research Topic will be a collection of manuscripts by researchers using diverse approaches including genomic and bioinformatics tools, plant transformation, metabolic studies, soil amendments, effects of plant hormones, etc.

Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.