BayCEER Workshop 2023

Arsenic in Taro - An overlooked risk?

O 4.5 in Thinking sharp: Insights from inbetween

12.10.2023, 12:30-12:45, H 36

Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is one of the World´s oldest food crops with documented use as long as 28,000 years ago on the Solomon islands. Today it is an important staple food in the Pacific Islands, Asia and Africa, where it is cultivated mainly for its starch- and mineral-rich tubers. As a result of its adaption to various microenvironments, including home gardens, paddy fields and swamps, Taro can be grown in both dry and flooded conditions. Flooding fields is known to mobilize soil-bound arsenic through iron hydroxide reduction and arsenite release. Arsenic uptake through roots, partial translocation to shoots and accumulation in grains is a well-known problem for rice cultivation. Our group has recently shown that flooding can also lead to methylation and thiolation of Arsenic in soils, forming among others the highly cytotoxic dimethylmonothioarsenate (DMMTA) which also accumulates in rice grains. Taro, being harvested mainly for its roots, should pose an even higher threat of arsenic accumulation and thus for human arsenic exposure through food. Yet, there is very little research on contents of metal(loid)s in Taro in general, and Arsenic specifically, let alone on arsenic speciation. Phytoremediation studies indicate the potential of taro to accumulate arsenic and heavy metals. The aim of this presentation is to give an overview of the current state of research on metal(loid) contents in Taro and first own data on arsenic content and speciation analysis using IC‑ICP‑MS.

Keywords: Arsenic speciation, Metal(loid)s, Eddoe, Dasheen, Orphan crop

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