Responses of plants to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) induced phytotoxicity: A hierarchical meta-analysis

Biologists have extensively investigated the toxicity of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) on plants in ecosystems, where experiments revealed that PBDEs can promote, inhibit, or have no significant effects on the physiological and biochemical functionality of plants. These studies have stimulated many theoretical works that aimed to elucidate the differences in the toxicity of PBDEs on various plants. However, there has been no quantitative attempt to reconcile theory with the results of empirical experiments. To close this gap between theory and experiments, we conducted a hierarchical meta-analysis to examine the toxicity of PBDEs on plants and confirmed potential sources of variation across numerous studies. Through the analysis of 1299 observations garnered from 41 studies, we revealed the significant toxicity of PBDEs on plants. This result was verified to be robust and showed no signs of bias. Our study affirmed that functional indexes can contribute to variations that lead to the toxicity of PBDEs on various plants. Furthermore, we found that lower congeners PBDEs were more toxic to plants than higher congeners PBDEs, and higher plants were more resistant to PBDEs induced phytotoxicity than lower plants. For interactive effects, only specific PBDEs concentrations had significant effects on glutathione S-transferase activities, and experimental durations had no significant impacts on any functional indexes. These results reconciled empirical studies and assisted us with elucidating the ecotoxicology of PBDEs induced phytotoxicity. •PBDEs treatments initiated significant toxicity to plants.•Lower congener PBDEs were more toxic to plants than higher congener PBDEs.•Higher plants were more resistant to PBDEs induced phytotoxicity than lower plants.•GST activities showed a positive trend with increasing PBDEs concentration.