Sustainable Phytoremediation of Potentially Toxic Element-Contaminated Soils Using Invasive Plants: Opportunities, Challenges, and Management

Invasive plants produce abundant biomass, while featuring strong environmental adaptability and fast growth rates, which endows them with great potential for phytoremediation of soils contaminated by potentially toxic elements (PTEs). Here, the advantages of using invasive plants for PTE-contaminated soil phytoremediation are reviewed. To date, 74 invasive species have been identified as confirmed hyperaccumulators and potential hyperaccumulators, with the others identified as PTE-tolerant plants with high PTE accumulation. The latter group possesses efficient PTE uptake and translocation capacity. Furthermore, invasive plants exhibit an outstanding tolerance to PTE toxicity, and this is attributed to their genetic differentiation, phenotypic plasticity, high competitive capacity, and unique compartmentalization mechanisms. In addition, invasive plant-mediated phytoremediation delivers considerable cost-benefit performance. Nevertheless, the application of invasive plants for PTE-contaminated soil phytoremediation still faces prominent ecological risks and technical bottlenecks, and is also restricted by existing laws and regulations. Feasible management strategies are identified here for the employment of invasive plants in phytoremediation. This review contributes to our growing understanding of PTE-contaminated soil phytoremediation by invasive plants, and it can provide a framework for reducing PTE concentrations in contaminated soils. Nevertheless, the practical application of invasive plants in PTE-contaminated soil phytoremediation is still a major issue that should be addressed in future.