ORIGINAL ARTICLE Metal accumulation by plant species growing on a mine contaminated site in Mexico Ofelia Morton-Bermea • Juan Miguel Go ´mez-Bernal • Marı ´a Aurora Armienta • Rufino Lozano • Elizabeth Herna ´ndez-A ´ lvarez • Francisco Romero • Javier Castro-Larragoitia Received: 6 February 2013 / Accepted: 4 November 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 Abstract The present work aims to assess the efficiency of heavy metal accumulation of native species growing in contaminated soils in the mining district of Taxco, Mexico. Soil and tailing sampling was conducted in three study sites: La Concha, El Fraile, and a control site. The study localities present diverse metal concentrations with sig- nificant differences in their proportion in the geochemical fractions. Results show that species Cupressus lindleyi and Juniperus deppeana accumulate Zn and Mn in anomalous concentrations at La Concha, where Zn is present in sol- uble fractions. Manganese, despite not being present mostly in the soluble fraction in soils and tailings, seems to have been increased in the soluble fraction after the plant growth. In contrast, samples of the same species taken at El Fraile and in the control site, where Zn and Mn are mainly contained in the residual fraction, do not show an anoma- lous enrichment. Other analyzed species growing under the same contamination conditions in La Concha (Jacaranda mimosifolia and Psidium guajava) do not show anomalous concentrations. These facts confirm the Zn and Mn accu- mulation capacity of C. lindleyi and Ju. deppeana, which depends on their accumulation ability and on the concen- tration of these elements in the soluble fraction. Keywords Metal accumulation Á Native plants Á Mine pollution Á Mexico Introduction Mining activities have a considerable impact on the envi- ronment since they generate large amounts of waste rocks and tailings, which may become sources of heavy metals to the environment (Armienta et al. 2003; Romero et al. 2007). Highly contaminated sites can support the growth of specific plant species called metallophytes, which can potentially be used to control the fluxes of trace elements in the environment (Robinson et al. 2009). Phytoremediation refers to the use of plants to remove, contain or render harmless environmental pollutants (Robinson et al. 2009). However, a successful phytoextraction procedure in heav- ily contaminated soils would take a long period of time. Taking into account this limitation, some authors recom- mended applying phytostabilization procedures, which reduce the bioavailability of contaminants in the soil, preventing their leaching and absorption by plants (Dick- inson et al. 2009). In spite of the speculation related to the effectiveness of phytoextraction of metals and metalloids of contaminated soils, the use of accumulator plants has been reported in many recent works as a cost-effective tool for phytoremediation (Conesa et al. 2006, 2009; Kidd and Monterroso 2004). O. Morton-Bermea (&) Á M. A. Armienta Á E. Herna ´ndez-A ´ lvarez Instituto de Geofı ´sica, Universidad Nacional Auto ´noma de Me ´xico, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Mexico D.F., Mexico e-mail: omorton@geofisica.unam.mx J. M. Go ´mez-Bernal Posgrado en Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad Nacional Auto ´ noma de Me ´xico, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Mexico D.F., Mexico R. Lozano Á F. Romero Instituto de Geologı ´a, Universidad Nacional Auto ´noma de Me ´xico, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Mexico D.F., Mexico J. Castro-Larragoitia Facultad de Ingenierı ´a, Universidad Auto ´noma de San Luis Potosı ´, Zona Universitaria, CP 78240, San Luis Potosı ´ SLP, Mexico 123 Environ Earth Sci DOI 10.1007/s12665-013-2923-9