Isolation of Mercury-Resistant Fungi from Mercury-Contaminated Agricultural Soil

Reginawanti Hindersah, Khainur Rasyid Asda, Diyan Herdiyantoro and Nadia Nuraniya Kamaluddin
Additional contact information
Reginawanti Hindersah: Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Padjadjaran Jatinangor Campus, Jalan Raya Bandung-Sumedang Km. 21, Sumedang, West Java 45363, Indonesia
Khainur Rasyid Asda: Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Padjadjaran Jatinangor Campus, Jalan Raya Bandung-Sumedang Km. 21, Sumedang, West Java 45363, Indonesia
Diyan Herdiyantoro: Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Padjadjaran Jatinangor Campus, Jalan Raya Bandung-Sumedang Km. 21, Sumedang, West Java 45363, Indonesia
Nadia Nuraniya Kamaluddin: Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Padjadjaran Jatinangor Campus, Jalan Raya Bandung-Sumedang Km. 21, Sumedang, West Java 45363, Indonesia

Agriculture, 2018, vol. 8, issue 3, 1-8

Abstract: Illegal gold mining and the resulting gold mine tailing ponds on Buru Island in Maluku, Indonesia have increased Mercury (Hg) levels in agricultural soil and caused massive environmental damage. High levels of Hg in soil lowers plant productivity and threatens the equilibrium of the food web. One possible method of handling Hg-contaminated soils is through bioremediation, which could eliminate Hg from the rhizosphere (root zone). In this study, indigenous fungi isolated from Hg-contaminated soil exhibited Hg-resistance in vitro. Soil samples were collected from the rhizosphere of pioneer plants which grew naturally in areas contaminated with gold mine tailing. The fungi’s capacity for Hg-resistance was confirmed by their better growth in chloramphenicol-boosted potato dextrose agar media which contained various HgCl 2 concentrations. Four isolates exhibited resistance of up to 25 mg kg −1 of Hg, and in an experiment with young Chinese cabbage ( Brassica rapa L.) test plants, two fungi species (including Aspergillus ) were demonstrated to increase the soil’s availability of Hg. The results suggest that Hg-resistant indigenous fungi can mobilize mercury in the soil and serve as potential bioremediation agents for contaminated agricultural land.

Keywords: mercury; phytoextraction; soil contamination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/3/33/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/3/33/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:8:y:2018:i:3:p:33-:d:133718

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().