Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

CHARACTERIZATION OF FUNGI ISOLATED FROM CATTLE DUNGWITH POTENTIAL LIGNOCELLULOLYTIC ACTIVITIES

Poonam Yadav, S.R. Singh and Mala Trivedi

Abstract

Agricultural wastes not only serve as sources of environmental pollutions, but also serve as magnificentsource of plant nutrients and natural repositories of bio-tools especially fungi of industrial interest forlignocellulolytic enzymes production. However, residues management particularly in rice- wheat systemis a tedious phenomenon due to narrow gap between harvesting and sowing of these two crops. Hence,microbial intervention is one of the key options that may use successfully for their management. Thus,cellulolytic fungi were isolated from the cattle dung collected from various locations for cellulosemanufacturing. The cellulolytic property of fungal isolates was confirmed by plate screening assay basedon yellow zone formation surrounding of fungal culture on Congo red agar medium plate owing toproduction of cellulase enzyme. The colony diameter, clear zone diameter and cellulolytic index showingin descending order of CRD3, CRD5, CRD6 and CRD10 isolates, but –glucosidase activity was greater inCRD3 and CRD5 while, the lowest was in CRD9. However, isolates CRD7, CRD8 and CRD10 exhibitedgreater biochemical and enzymatic activity than rest of the promising fungal isolates. Similarly, isolatesCRD1 and CRD2 utilized most of carbon sources as carbon substrate, but CRD7, CRD8 and CRD10 couldnot utilized mannitol and cellulose as carbon substrate. Overall, isolate CRD10 showed as a promisingisolate in respect of biochemical, carbon utilization pattern and enzymatic activity than rest of the promisingisolates.