Melioidosis results from an infection with the soil-borne pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei, and cases of melioidosis usually cluster after rains or a typhoon. In an endemic area of Taiwan, B. pseudomallei is primarily geographically distributed in cropped fields in the northwest of this area, whereas melioidosis cases are distributed in a densely populated district in the southeast. We hypoth...

Phytoremediation is a promising technique for cleaning petroleum contaminated soils. In this study, the effects of two grass species (Festuca arundinacea Schreb. and Festuca pratensis Huds.), infected (E(+)) and non-infected (E(-)) by endophytic fungi (Neotyphodium coenophialum and Neotyphodium uncinatum, respectively) on the degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in an aged petroleum contaminat...

Enhanced rhizosphere degradation uses plants to stimulate the rhizosphere microbial community to degrade organic contaminants. We measured changes in microbial communities caused by the addition of two species of plants in a soil contaminated with 31,000 ppm of total petroleum hydrocarbons. Perennial ryegrass and/or alfalfa increased the number of rhizosphere bacteria in the hydrocarbon-contami...

The main objective of this study was to assess the sensitivity of genotoxic endpoints, to be considered in earthworm’s reproduction assays, performed under the evaluation of soils contaminated with radioactive wastes. Earthworms were exposed, under laboratorial conditions, to a contaminated soil from the Cunha Baixa uranium mine and to LUFA 2.2 soil (control soil). Earthworms (Eisenia andrei Bo...

In a previous study by the authors, toxicity screening of Atrazine-resistant soil bacteria from different contaminated soils resulted in 23-soil isolate best grown in the presence of herbicide Atrazine. They were identified according to their 16S rDNA sequencing into Enterobacter (E. cloacae), Bacillus (B. cereus and B. anthracis), Pseudomonas (P. aeruginosa, P. balearica, P. indica and P. otit...

Long-term exposure to polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) has been connected to chronic human health disorders. It is also well-known that i) PAH contamination alters soil bacterial communities, ii) human microbiome is associated with environmental microbiome, and iii) alteration in the abundance of members in several bacterial phyla is associated with adverse or beneficial human health effects. W...

The continuous use of copper-based fungicide over the years in the control of black pod disease has led to heavy-metal accumulation in cocoa soils due to its non biodegradable nature. Considering the limited, available forest, it is therefore, necessary for the existing heavy-metal contaminated cocoa soils to undergo soil remediation in order to reduce the bioavailability of metals for plant up...

The electrokinetic technique is an emerging technology presently tested in situ to remove dissolved heavy metals from contaminated groundwater. There is a growing interest for using this system to cleanse clayey soil contaminated by toxic metallic ions. Currently, there are very few available non-destructive treatment methods that could be successfully applied in situ on low permeable type of s...

In recent years, the nanoscale zero-valent iron (NZVI) particles have been used successfully for the degradation of hydrocarboncompounds and remediation of other pollutants. Nevertheless, as far as we know, there is no specific study on the improvement of thegeotechnical properties of contaminated soils with hydrocarbon compounds by NZVI. This study used NZVI particles to remove gasoil in a cla...

BACKGROUND Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are widespread toxic pollutants. Bioremediation might be an effective, cost competitive and environment-friendly solution for remediating environmental matrices contaminated by PCBs but it is still unsatisfactory, mostly for the limited biodegradation potential of bacteria involved in the processes. Very little is known about mitosporic fungi potentia...