Poplar as a woody model for the phytomanagement of trace element contaminated soils

On a global scale, the effects of human activities, in particular changes in the way land is used and exploited and the resulting contamination, have had profound negative effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Consequently, restoring the marginal lands through the use of solutions inspired and supported by nature appears to be one of the European Union’s main objectives. In this respect, eco-innovative phytotechnologies, such as phytoremediation, have become an important ecological engineering approach for the recovery of contaminated land. A relatively new area of phytoremediation is phytomanagement in which non-food crops with high biomass yields are used to reduce and control the risks associated with soil pollution, while enabling profitable and sustainable use of resources by extracting contaminants and recovering marketable biomass. Consequently, the best choice of plant species is crucial to the successful phytomanagement of contaminated sites. This meta-analysis highlights the importance of using fast-growing plants for phytomanagement purposes, focusing on woody species. Those from the Salicaceae family, which includes poplars (Populus), have attracted the most attention in recent decades. On the basis of this meta-analysis, poplars appear to be the best candidates for the remediation of metal-contaminated soils, particularly when combined with the most appropriate microbial consortia. Finally, we describe the molecular determinants of poplar involved in the management of trace elements (TE), as well as the valorization processes that have been applied to poplar biomass from phytoremediation trials.