Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Sites: Is There Something More Than ? New Insights into Black Fungal Diversity Using the Long Cold Incubation Method.

Human-made hydrocarbon-rich environments are important reservoirs of microorganisms with specific degrading abilities and pathogenic potential. In particular, black fungi are of great interest, but their presence in the environment is frequently underestimated because they are difficult to isolate. In the frame of a biodiversity study from fuel-contaminated sites involving 30 diesel car tanks and 112 fuel pump dispensers (52 diesel and 60 gasoline, respectively), a total of 181 black fungal strains were isolated.

Black Fungi and Hydrocarbons: An Environmental Survey for Alkylbenzene Assimilation.

Environmental pollution with alkylbenzene hydrocarbons such as toluene is a recurring phenomenon. Their toxicity and harmful effect on people and the environment drive the search for sustainable removal techniques such as bioremediation, which is based on the microbial metabolism of xenobiotic compounds. Melanized fungi present extremophilic characteristics, which allow their survival in inhospitable habitats such as those contaminated with hydrocarbons.

Correction: Neglecting the fallow season can significantly underestimate annual methane emissions in Mediterranean rice fields.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Neglecting the fallow season can significantly underestimate annual methane emissions in Mediterranean rice fields.

Paddy rice fields are one of the most important sources of anthropogenic methane. Improving the accuracy in the CH4 budget is fundamental to identify strategies to mitigate climate change. Such improvement requires a mechanistic understanding of the complex interactions between environmental and agronomic factors determining CH4 emissions, and also the characterization of the annual temporal CH4 emissions pattern in the whole crop cycle.

Exophiala sideris, a novel black yeast isolated from environments polluted with toxic alkyl benzenes and arsenic.

A novel species of the black yeast genus Exophiala (order Chaetothyriales) is described. Strains were repeatedly obtained by enriching samples of wild berries from different plants, guano-rich soil and from oak railway ties treated with arsenic creosote under a toluene-rich atmosphere. An identical strain was encountered in a closed arsenic mine polluted by alkyl benzenes.