BACKGROUND Evergreen coniferous forests contain high stocks of organic matter. Significant carbon transformations occur in litter and soil of these ecosystems, making them important for the global carbon cycle. Due to seasonal allocation of photosynthates to roots, carbon availability changes seasonally in the topsoil. The aim of this paper was to describe the seasonal differences in C source u...

Lignin is a major lock for lignocellulose valorization in biorefineries, prompting need to find new ligninolytic systems. Termites are efficient degraders, and large part of this...

Water contamination with large amounts of industrial textile coloured effluents is an environmental concern. For the treatment of textile effluents, white-rot fungi have received extensive attention due to their powerful capability to produce oxidative (e.g., ligninolytic) enzymes. In addition, other groups of fungi, such as species of Aspergillus and Trichoderma, have also been used for textil...

The increasing world demand for fuels makes it necessary to exploit the largest reserve of extra-heavy crude oil (EHCO) of the Orinoco Oil Belt from Venezuela. We propose the use of extracellular oxidative enzymes, in particular, lignin-degrading enzyme systems (LDS) of fungi, for enzymatic improvement of EHCO. Autochthonous non-white rot fungal strains able to use EHCO, and several polycyclic ...

Two commercial Pleurotus ostreatus strains (030 and K12) were cultivated under industrial conditions on wheat straw blocks 1718 kg in weight. Within 10 weeks of cultivation, three flushes of fruiting body production were obtained with total yields of 4.2 and 4.1 kg mushrooms/substrate block and a biological efficiency (BE = total yield of fresh mushrooms per dry weight of substrate) of about 95...