Plant ecological studies underpinning phytoremediation approaches for oil-damaged desert environments in Kuwait Sarah Alateiqi, Dr. Kevin Murphy: Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, Faculty of Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow. Dr. Layla Isa Al-Musawi: KNFP, Kuwait. Introduction: After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the destruction they left behind, especially in the oil sector (Fig. 1), it has become crucial to find a way to clean up all the contamination without costing the country a huge amount of money, so this study focuses on undertaking the plant community studies needed to find potential native phytoremediator species suitable for this purpose. The aim was to find an indigenous community or individual species that can be a potential phytoremediator for the oil-contaminated soils which commonly occur in oil field areas of Kuwait in abundance characterized by Haloxylon salicornicum, or Cyperus conglomeratus . Typical of desert plant communities, values were usually low. This suggest that oil-tolerant species (provisionally considered to be plants like Haloxylon and Cyperus) have tended to replace non-polluted species in damaged areas, hence maintaining diversity, some 20 years after the pollution events occurred (Fig. 2). -TWINSPAN Sample Group for Plant Height: Surprisingly mean plant height of Group D, samples, mainly drawn from Burgan oil field is significantly greater than in other sample-groups. Groups A and E of the sample-groups had the shortest –growing vegetation: mainly representing Sabah Alahmad natural reserve and Um Alr-Ros Military area. -TWINSPAN Sample Group for Haloxylon salicornicum: Sample-Group B, mainly drawn from Bahara oil lake spill, Um Alaish oil field, Sabriya oil field, and Um Ghadier oil field had significantly greater abundance of Haloxylon (Fig. 2). -TWINSPANE Sample Group for PAH Soil Analysis: Chrysene shows the highest between the PAH’s, while Pyrene and Phenanthrene are the second and third respectively (Fig. 3). *The PAH Soil Analysis for Areas under Survey: Chrysene is the highest, while the second is Phenanthrene and Pyrene in the third position (Fig. 4). *PAH in Plant Tissue Analysis for TWINSPAN Groups : The plants tissue analysis shows that they do uptake mostly Phenanthrene, Fluorene (Although it is not detected in the soil) and Fluoranthene, in Group B, consists of Haloxylon plant samples, while Cyperus and Rhanterium shared Groups C (Fig.5). Methodology: Sampling locations covered a wide range of geographical location (Fig. 1, 2), and intensity of soil hydrocarbon pollution, across Kuwait. In total 200 quadrat samples were collected from sampling sites inside oilfield areas as well as other, less impacted areas with relatively high vegetation cover. Within each selected site, precise UTM geo-coordinates (latitude, longitude and altitude), were established using GPS, and a minimum of 5 randomly-position quadrats were sampled around the sampling point. In each quadrat species presence, frequency and mean vegetation height was recorded. Soil and plant samples were collected for subsequent lab analysis of a range of relevant chemical parameters. Datasets on (i) abundance of each plant species present (F); (ii) mean vegetation height (m); (iii) species diversity (S m-2 and also possibly Shannon-Weiner Index: H); (iv) semi-quantitative Oil Damage Score (ODS); (v) soil and within-plant concentrations (the latter only for the dominant plant species present in the quadrat) of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH); (vi) soil moisture. The survey data have been analyzed using TWINSPAN classification and produced 8 Groups (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H) (Fig . 3, 4, 5). Fig 1: Kuwait Map with oil field locations (KNFP, 2010) Fig. 2: Sampling in Sabah Alahmad protected area (Photo: Layla AlMusawi). Results: *TWINSPAN Groups for Plant species Indicators are: Haloxylon salicornicum, Pulicaria undulata, Convolvulus cephalopoda, Gynandriris sisyrinchium, Trigonella stellata, Stipagrostis plumosa. Cyperus conglomeratus, Salsola imbricata, Zygophyllum qatarense, Tamarix aucherana. Fagonia bruguieri, Pennisetum divisum, Citrullus colocynthis, Heliotropium bacciferum. *Comparison of mean values for environmental and plant variables between TWINSPAN sample groups: -TWINSPAN Sample Group for Oil Damage Score: Using a Kruskal-Wallis test the results show that two groups (B, C) were significantly different from the other 6 sample groups. Most of the samples making up B and C , are from impacted areas with oil pollution (Bahara oil lake spill, Um Alaish oil field, Sabriya oil field, Um Ghadier oil field, Burgan oil field), while the rest of them came from less impacted areas like Sabah Alahmad natural reserve. -TWINSPAN Sample Group for Species Diversity: The mean species diversity for the sample-groups did not differ greatly. Conclusions: The most important finding to emerge from this study is that the plants communities showed association with different intensities of oil contamination, also the plants uptake for contaminants are not different from the once in the soil, and they have the ability to block Chrysene out of their system and the ability to endure and deal with Phenanthrene. Species Diversity thought to be replaced by the Haloxylon and Cyperus as a tolerant for Petroleum hydrocarbon disturbance, while the plants heights, even in a highly impacted, disturbed, areas can be taller than the less impacted areas. Further work needs to be done to establish in more detail the comparative importance of environmental and anthropogenic factors influence. Fig. 3, 4: Graph showing relative importance of environmental variables, with location of Areas and TWINSPAN sample groups (A-H)., while the Areas are (Bahara, Sabah Alahmad Natural reserve, Burgan oil field, Um-Alaish oil field, Sabriya oil field, Um-Ghadier,) References: *KNFP (2010). Map of Kuwait with the oil fields locations. KNFP, Kuwait. * Photo: Dr. Layla Al-Musawi (2011). Fig. 5: Graph shows the plants uptake of the PAH in two TWINSPAN groups.