Research Article
Vida Dawoodi, Mahbobeh Madani,
Abstract
In the present study, the population of heterotrophic and oil-utilizing fungi was investigated in soils with different oil contamination from Khuzestan, Iran. Diversity and distribution of soil population were determined in relation to a number of environmental factors such as pH, electrical conductivity and soil organic matter. In the soil samples, counts of the total heterotrophic fungi ranged from 0.41 ± 0.16 to 3333.33 ± 288.00 × 102 CFU/g soil while counts of crude oil-utilizing fungi ranged from 0.26 ± 0.10 to 2860.00 ± 163.20 × 102 CFU/g soil. In soil samples 3 and 5, population of oil-utilizing fungi was more than heterotrophic fungi. Moreover, sixty species belonging to thirteen fungal genera were isolated from oil-contaminated soils. The thirteen isolated fungal genera included Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, Acremonium, Candida, Rhodotorula, Mucor, Aureobasidium, Cunninghamella, Rhizopus, Alternaria, Beauveria and Paecilomyces, among which Beauveria, Paecilomyces and species of Aspergillus were isolated only from mineral salts medium (MSM). Investigation of the isolation of fungi from oil-contaminated environments showed that abundance and fungal diversity in different stations were significantly different.