Four greenhouse studies were conducted to evaluate the effects of native prairie grasses and two pesticide-degrading bacteria to remediate atrazine and metolachlor in soils from agricultural dealerships (Alpha site soil, northwest Iowa, USA; Bravo site soil, central Iowa, USA). The Alpha soil contained a low population of atrazine-degrading microorganisms relative to the Bravo soil. Each soil f...

A simple method for detection and enumeration of alkylbenzenesulfonate (ABS)-degrading microorganisms by using agar plates was developed and used in microbiological studies of coastal marine and polluted river waters. The method depends upon the color responses of neutral red in alkaline medium. Neutral red changes from pink, when it enters into ABS micelles, to yellow, when the ABS is degraded...

polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs) are one of the most common contaminants found in soil. pahs exhibit a significant concern because of their toxicity, carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic properties. using microorganisms for cleaning the pollution of soil can be cheap, effective and can provide environmental immunity. the goal of this study is to isolate and identify phenanthrene degra...

Exhaustive studies on the degradation of plastics have been carried out in order to overcome the environmental problems associated with synthetic plastic waste. Recent work has included studies of the distribution of synthetic polymer-degrading microorganisms in the environment, the isolation of new microorganisms for biodegradation, the discovery of new degradation enzymes, and the cloning of ...

A river-ecosystem is strongly affected by human activities. The pollutants discharged into a river from human activities may destroy the ecosystem of the river. Microorganisms in rivers (including suspended and sessile microorganisms) play key roles in degrading the pollutant and therefore in preventing the river ecosystem from being destroyed. To establish suitable measures for the protection ...

The substrates of composting with primary components of plant material such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin are rather difficult to biodegrade and reduce the availability of the other polymers by means of a physical restriction (Ladisch et al., 1983). Studies have showed that it is of great importance that increase of the microbial populations especially the lignocellulose-degrading micr...

Isoquinoline-degrading microbial cultures were isolated from oil- and creosote-contaminated soils. The establishment of initial enrichment cultures required the use of emulsified isoquinoline. Once growth on isoquinoline was established, isoquinoline emulsification was no longer required for utilization of isoquinoline as the sole source of carbon and nitrogen by these cultures. An isoquinoline...

A new method to facilitate rapid screening of lignin-degrading microorganisms was developed. Fungal strains are cultivated in tissue culture plates containing C-ring-labeled dehydrogenation polymerizate (DHP) (synthetic lignin). Evolved CO(2) is trapped in barium-saturated filter paper and is detected by exposing the paper to X-ray film. Analysis of the autoradiograms, carried out by density me...