Scientists Discover New Species of Metal-Eating Plant that Absorbs Nickel in the Philippines

We all know that plants absorb water and sunlight in order to survive and thrive, but what about a plant that also "eats" metal?" Scientists have discovered a new plant in the Philippines that has an unusual lifestyle; it absorbs nickel in concentrations that would be poisonous to other organisms.

The new species is called Rinorea niccolifera and was discovered on the western part of Luzon Island in the Philippines, an area known for soils rich in heavy metals. The ability to absorb nickel is actually a rare phenomenon; in fact, only about .5 to one percent of plant species native to nickel-rich soils have been recorded to exhibit this ability. Not only that, but only about 450 species are known to have this unusual trait. That's a very small percentage considering that there are an estimated 300,000 species of vascular plants in the world.

The new plant has the ability to accumulate up to 18,000 ppm of the metal in its leaves without being poisoned. That's a hundred to a thousand times higher than in most other plants. This makes the plant a hyperaccumulator plant, which means that it hyperaccumulates the metal.

"Hyperaccumulator plants have great potentials for the development of green technologies, for example 'phytoremediation' and 'phytomining,'" said Augustine Doronila, one of the researchers, in a news release.

Phytoremediation is the process of using hyperaccumulator plants to remove heavy metals in contaminated soils. This is extremely useful in areas that have been affected by mining or other soil-contaminating processes. Phytomining, in contrast, is the use of hyperaccumulator plants to grow and harvest in order to recover commercially valuable metals in plant shoots from metal-rich sites.

The new plant could be very useful in future exploits, especially when it comes to helping remove heavy metals from soils in order to restore sites.

The findings are published in the journal PhytoKeys.