Managing environmental contamination through phytoremediation by invasive plants: A review

Environmental degradation by contaminants is a serious concern in the developing world. The remediation strategies to overcome the problem of environmental degradation should be assorted for its ecological impacts. Phytoremediation is a green technology for the removal of pollutants from various environmental compartments by employing green plants. An ideal phytoremediation plant candidate should possess some characteristic features such as exhibiting stronger growth traits with high biomass, unpalatable nature, exuberant root system, hyper accumulation of target contaminants accompanied with stress tolerance attributes. The growth of natural vegetation is prevented by the barren and uncongenial conditions prevailing in the contaminated sites, but however invasive plants are capable of establishing themselves on those sites due to their opportunistic incursive nature. Since, it is hard to eradicate an invasive species once after their establishment in a new habitat or ecosystem, they can possibly be controlled by sustainable management through the way of exploiting them in contaminant remediation, thus phytoremediation. Therefore, it is of foremost requisite to determine the ability of invasive species in offering various ecologically viable services including contaminant remediation through scientific exploration. In this review, the implications of using invasive plants in contaminant remediation with accompanying challenges and scopes involved are discussed with the available volume of literatures in contaminant remediation using plants, especially the invasive plants.