High tolerant and degrader actinomucor elegans to fungicides isolated from contaminated soils

Abstract

The aim of this work was to isolate fungal strains from phytotoxic agricultural soils and study their bioremediation potential by degrading three fungicides. In this study, 28 fungal strains were isolated from phytotoxic agricultural soil with intensive use of pesticides. An exploratory multivariate analysis of degradation experiments by the fungal strains showed the capacity of fungi to resist and degrade different concentrations of carbendazim, captan and zineb. Actinomucor elegans LBM 239 were identified as the most tolerant fungi to these pollutants. A. elegans LBM 239 removed 63.8% of the carbendazim in the culture medium after 7 days of treatment. In conclusions, we found two fungal strains able to tolerate and biodegrade the three fungicides studied in this work, particularly, the carbendazim. The capability of these fungi, A. elegans LBM 239, to biodegrade high doses of fungicides make them suitable for bioremediation of contaminated soils with carbendazim, captan or zineb.