Phytoforensics: Soil and Groundwater Sampling Without Soil or Groundwater!

Plants directly interact with surrounding water, air, and soil, collecting and storing chemicals and elements from the surrounding environment. Tree coring methods have shown that groundwater contamination can be assessed without directly sampling the groundwater. In this work, two new and innovative sampling methods that place sampling devices inside the plant, i.e. “in-planta”, were developed to access this valuable data that can direct and perhaps replace traditional methods for contaminated-site investigations. Traditional site assessments may be limited due to time, site access, and expense, resulting in incomplete understanding of the contaminated plumes and inefficient remedial approaches. The new techniques presented include placing established solid phase microextraction fibers (SPMEs) and newly developed solid phase samplers (SPSs) that have greater sensitivity and reproducibility and can also provide repeated sampling of the same trees with minimal damage, offering new possibilities in using plants to monitor contaminated sites as well as doing initial investigations. These methods are also much faster and can be accomplished with little of no property and ecological damage, and with amazing acceptance by property owners