1. ZAHRA ASGHAR - Department of Environmental Science, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan.
2. NUMRAH NISAR - Department of Environmental Science, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan.
3. TAHIRA AZIZ MUGHAL - Department of Environmental Science, Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan.
The ubiquitous nature of pesticides has been very well known among the researchers particularly environmentalists and ecologists. Some pesticides being banned still have their resistant residues in the soil and aquifer layers due to their recalcitrant nature. Current study was designed to observe the presence of few salient pesticides and their bioremediation using fungus. Water resources such as drinking water (tube well, tap and hand pump) as well as surface waters were analyzed for the presence of few salient pesticides. Observation showed that highest contamination was observed in the surface water (on average 7-10 X more) and lowest in the tube well water. Carbaryl residues had been observed to be highest with significant residues appearing in the four researched sites during investigation (6µg/L of carbaryl observed in site 1). Aspergillus Niger was observed to be most resistant fungal species to be isolated from the contaminated sites and was resistant to higher concentrations of pesticides in the media (growth media). Upon investigation of degradation, it was observed that Aspergillus Niger was capable of degrading these pesticides effectively (with carbaryl degradation on 8th day of exposure) in few days of time. Therefore, the potential of enzymes involved in the degradation can be explored further and allowed to help in purifying the water through a biodegradation approach.
Bioremediation, Carbaryl, Aspergillus Niger.