Studies Concerning the Accumulation of
Minerals and Heavy Metals in Fruiting Bodies of
Wild Mushrooms
Claudia Stihi
a
, Anca Gheboianu
b
, Cristiana Radulescu
a
, Ion V.
Popescu
a,b,d
, Gabriela Busuioc
c
, Iulian Bancuta
b
a
Valahia University of Targoviste, Faculty of Sciences and Arts, Sciences Department, Unirii street,
130082, Targoviste, Romania
b
Valahia University of Targoviste, Multidisciplinary Research Institute for Sciences and Technologies,
Unirii street, 130082, Targoviste, Romania
c
Valahia University of Targoviste, Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Biotechnologies,
Environmental Engineering Department, Unirii street, 130082, Targoviste, Romania
d
Academy of Romanian Scientist, Bucharest, Romania
Abstract. The minerals and heavy metals play an important role in the metabolic processes,
during the growth and development of mushrooms, when they are available in appreciable
concentration. In this work the concentrations of Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Se, Cd and Pb were
analyzed using the Flame Atomic Absorption spectrometry (FAAS) together with Energy
Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF) in 3 wild mushrooms species and their
growing substrate, collected from various forestry fields in Dambovita County, Romania. The
analyzed mushrooms were: Amanita phalloides, Amanita rubescens and Armillariella mellea.
The accumulation coefficients were calculated to assess the mobility of minerals and heavy
metals from substrate to mushrooms [1].
Keywords: mushrooms, EDXRF, FAS.
PACS: 87.64.K-
INTRODUCTION
Many studies revealed a high ability of mushrooms to accumulate common
pollutants present in the biosphere at trace levels, mainly heavy metals and
radionuclides [1-9].
In Romania, consumption of wild growing mushrooms was preferred to the
cultivated fungus (e.g. Armillariella mellea, Amanita rubescens). The knowledge of
the nutritional value of the wild growing mushrooms was limited when compared with
other vegetables. It seems that mushrooms have still much more to offer, but it is
necessary to concentrate all studies for establishing a real metabolic feature for one
species in the view to promote it as hyperaccumulator or bioindicator for one metal
element. Different heavy metals such as As, Cd, Ni, Hg, accumulated in high
concentration in mushrooms are toxic for the peoples; on the other hand, many
elements are essential for the human metabolism, such as Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu, Cr, Se, but
Physics Conference TIM-10
AIP Conf. Proc. 1387, 282-287 (2011); doi: 10.1063/1.3647088
© 2011 American Institute of Physics 978-0-7354-0951-4/$30.00
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