First Record of Neofusicoccum luteum and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides Causing Anthracnose and Stem End Rot on Avocado Fruits in Greece.

In May 2022, rot symptoms were observed 5 days after storage on fresh avocado fruits cv "Lamb Hass" harvested from a 3.4 ha organic orchard in Chania, Crete exhibiting 30% symptom incidence. Brownish-green sunken lesions and soft rot with dark brown lesions covering up to 50% of the mesocarp on fruits and blackish soft lesions on fruit stem ends were observed.

Microbial Community Structure among Honey Samples of Different Pollen Origin.

Honey's antibacterial activity has been recently linked to the inhibitory effects of honey microbiota against a range of foodborne and human pathogens. In the current study, the microbial community structure of honey samples exerting pronounced antimicrobial activity was examined. The honey samples were obtained from different geographical locations in Greece and had diverse pollen origin (fir, cotton, fir-oak, and honeys).

Evaluation of electrochemical and O/UV/HO methods at various combinations during treatment of mature landfill leachate.

In this study, electrochemical treatment and application of O/UV/HO in various combinations were evaluated in respect to their efficiency to depurate mature landfill leachate. Based on preliminary experiments, electrochemical treatment using stainless-steel electrodes at 2 cm gap was performed optimally at 50 mA/cm and pH 6, while application of O at 120 L/h, UV at 991 J/cm and HO concentration of 1 g/L was carried out. Electrochemical treatment and O/UV/HO under optimal conditions were applied as follows: I) electrochemical treatment, followed by O/UV/HO and solids precipitation, II) electrochemical treatment, followed by precipitation and then by O/UV/HO treatment, and III) O/UV/HO, followed by electrochemical treatment.

Algae and Their Metabolites as Potential Bio-Pesticides.

An increasing human population necessitates more food production, yet current techniques in agriculture, such as chemical pesticide use, have negative impacts on the ecosystems and strong public opposition. Alternatives to synthetic pesticides should be safe for humans, the environment, and be sustainable. Extremely diverse ecological niches and millions of years of competition have shaped the genomes of algae to produce a myriad of substances that may serve humans in various biotechnological areas.

Status and Prospects of Botanical Biopesticides in Europe and Mediterranean Countries.

Concerning human and environmental health, safe alternatives to synthetic pesticides are urgently needed. Many of the currently used synthetic pesticides are not authorized for application in organic agriculture. In addition, the developed resistances of various pests against classical pesticides necessitate the urgent demand for efficient and safe products with novel modes of action.

Isolation, characterization and industrial application of a Cladosporium herbarum fungal strain able to degrade the fungicide imazalil.

Imazalil (IMZ) is an imidazole fungicide commonly used by fruit-packaging plants (FPPs) to control fungal infections during storage. Its application leads to the production of pesticide-contaminated wastewaters, which, according to the European Commission, need to be treated on site. Considering the lack of efficient treatment methods, biodepuration systems inoculated with tailored-made inocula specialized on the removal of such persistent fungicides appear as an appropriate solution.

Biotreatment efficiency, degradation mechanism and bacterial community structure in an immobilized cell bioreactor treating triclosan-rich wastewater.

Biotreatment of triclosan is mainly performed in conventional activated sludge systems, which, however, are not capable of completely removing this antibacterial agent. As a consequence, triclosan ends up in surface and groundwater, constituting an environmental threat, due to its toxicity to aquatic life. However, little is known regarding the diversity and mechanism of action of microbiota capable of degrading triclosan.

sp. AA26 as a Protein Source in the Larval Diet of .

The Spotted-Wing Drosophila fly, , is an invasive pest species infesting major agricultural soft fruits. management is currently based on insecticide applications that bear major concerns regarding their efficiency, safety and environmental sustainability. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an efficient and friendly to the environment pest control method that has been suggested for the population control.

Bioprocess performance, transformation pathway, and bacterial community dynamics in an immobilized cell bioreactor treating fludioxonil-contaminated wastewater under microaerophilic conditions.

Fludioxonil is a post-harvest fungicide contained in effluents produced by fruit packaging plants, which should be treated prior to environmental dispersal. We developed and evaluated an immobilized cell bioreactor, operating under microaerophilic conditions and gradually reduced hydraulic retention times (HRTs) from 10 to 3.9 days, for the biotreatment of fludioxonil-rich wastewater.

Effect of Chlorination on Microbiological Quality of Effluent of a Full-Scale Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The evaluation of effluent wastewater quality mainly relies on the assessment of conventional bacterial indicators, such as fecal coliforms and enterococci; however, little is known about opportunistic pathogens, which can resist chlorination and may be transmitted in aquatic environments. In contrast to conventional microbiological methods, high-throughput molecular techniques can provide an accurate evaluation of effluent quality, although a limited number of studies have been performed in this direction. In this work, high-throughput amplicon sequencing was employed to assess the effectiveness of chlorination as a disinfection method for secondary effluents.

Biotreatment efficiency, hydrolytic potential and bacterial community dynamics in an immobilized cell bioreactor treating caper processing wastewater under highly saline conditions.

Although caper processing wastewaters (CPW) are characterized by high organic content and salt concentration, no attempt has been made to treat these effluents. In this study, an immobilized cell bioreactor efficiently treated CPW even at hypersaline conditions (100 g/L salinity). Nitrogen was mainly assimilated during biotreatment, as nitrification was inhibited at elevated salinities.

NH-N versus pH and ORP versus NO-N sensors during online monitoring of an intermittently aerated and fed membrane bioreactor.

Online sensors, which monitor the ammonia oxidation and the dissimilatory nitrate reduction process, can optimize aerobic and anoxic phase duration. The purpose of this study was to comparatively evaluate the effectiveness of online sensors that were in situ-located in an intermittently aerated and fed membrane bioreactor (IAF-MBR) system. Ammonium and nitrate nitrogen sensors equipped with ion-selective electrodes as well as pH and oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) sensors were employed to online monitoring and optimizing of ammonia oxidation and nitrate reduction processes.

Biotreatment and bacterial succession in an upflow immobilized cell bioreactor fed with fludioxonil wastewater.

The large quantities and the persistent nature of fungicide wastewaters have increased the efforts towards a sustainable technological solution. In this context, fludioxonil-contaminated wastewater was treated in an upflow immobilized cell bioreactor, resulting in chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency even higher than 80%, whereas the electrical conductivity (EC) of the effluent was gradually increased. Organic-F was mineralized by 94.

Enterobacter sp. AA26 gut symbiont as a protein source for Mediterranean fruit fly mass-rearing and sterile insect technique applications.

Background: Insect species have established sophisticated symbiotic associations with diverse groups of microorganisms including bacteria which have been shown to affect several aspects of their biology, physiology, ecology and evolution. In addition, recent studies have shown that insect symbionts, including those localized in the gastrointestinal tract, can be exploited for the enhancement of sterile insect technique (SIT) applications against major insect pests such as the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) Ceratitis capitata. We previously showed that Enterobacter sp.

Biochemical and nutritional characterization of the medfly gut symbiont Enterobacter sp. AA26 for its use as probiotics in sterile insect technique applications.

Background: Enterobacter sp. AA26 was recently isolated from the midgut of Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) and it was shown to have positive effects in rearing efficiency when used as larval probiotics. In this study, biomass production was carried out in bench-scale bioreactors to elucidate the biokinetic properties of Enterobacter sp.

Combined chemically enhanced primary sedimentation and biofiltration process for low cost municipal wastewater treatment.

The main objective of wastewater treatment is to remove carbon and other nutrients from municipal and industrial effluents in order to protect the environment and human health. Typical wastewater treatment is usually achieved by a combination of physical, chemical and biological methods. In this work, municipal wastewater was depurated using chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) in combination with a pilot-scale trickling filter.

Biodegradation aspects of ibuprofen and identification of ibuprofen-degrading microbiota in an immobilized cell bioreactor.

An enrichment process was employed by applying high ibuprofen concentration in an immobilized cell bioreactor in order to favor the ibuprofen-degrading community present in activated sludge. Experimental data showed the ability of the immobilized cell bioreactor to achieve high ibuprofen removal efficiencies (98.4 ± 0.

Optimization aspects of the biological nitrogen removal process in a full-scale twin sequencing batch reactor (SBR) system in series treating landfill leachate.

Despite the fact that biological nitrogen removal (BNR) process has been studied in detail in laboratory- and pilot-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) systems treating landfill leachate, a limited number of research works have been performed in full-scale SBR plants regarding nitrification and denitrification. In the current study, a full-scale twin SBR system in series of 700 m (350 m each) treating medium-age landfill leachate was evaluated in terms of its carbon and nitrogen removal efficiency in the absence and presence of external carbon source, i.e.

Microbiological and physicochemical evaluation of the effluent quality in a membrane bioreactor system to meet the legislative limits for wastewater reuse.

The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and effluent quality of a pilot-scale intermittently aerated and fed, externally submerged membrane bioreactor (MBRes) treating municipal wastewater. The effluent quality of the MBRes was evaluated regarding system ability to comply with the Greek legislative limits for restricted and unrestricted wastewater reuse. The average permeate flux was 13.

Dominance of candidate Saccharibacteria in a membrane bioreactor treating medium age landfill leachate: Effects of organic load on microbial communities, hydrolytic potential and extracellular polymeric substances.

A membrane bioreactor (MBR), accomplishing high nitrogen removal efficiencies, was evaluated under various landfill leachate concentrations (50, 75 and 100% v/v). Proteinous and carbohydrate extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and soluble microbial product (SMP) were strongly correlated (p<0.01) with organic load, salinity and NH-N.

Inhibition of the respiratory chain reactions in denitrifying EBPR biomass under simultaneous presence of acetate and electron acceptor.

In this study, the deterioration of the typical EBPR (Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal) process due to the simultaneous presence of electron donor (external substrate) and electron acceptor (oxygen or nitrate) was investigated by using a PAOs (Polyphosphate Accumulating Organisms)-enriched biomass grown in a modified DEPHANOX system. Intracellular and extracellular constituents were monitored in batch tests under different electron donor and acceptor conditions and specific oxygen and nitrogen uptake rates were evaluated. Results showed that phosphorus uptake was inhibited during the simultaneous presence of electron donor (acetate) and acceptor (O/NO) in the mixed liquor.

Bacterial community structure and prevalence of Pusillimonas-like bacteria in aged landfill leachate.

Although several works have been performed from an engineering point of view, a limited number of studies have focused on microbial communities involved in the humification of aged landfill leachates. In this work, cultivation techniques, next-generation sequencing, and phospholipid fatty acid analysis were adopted to decrypt the diversity and the ecophysiological properties of the dominant microbiota in aged landfill leachate. Based on Illumina sequencing, Betaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Alphaproteobacteria dominated the aged landfill leachate.

Novel hydrolytic extremely halotolerant alkaliphiles from mature landfill leachate with key involvement in maturation process.

Mature landfill leachate is a heavily-polluted wastewater due to its recalcitrant nature of organic matter, and high ammonia and salt content. Despite the moderate saline and alkaline nature of this habitat, no attention has been paid to the isolation and functional role of extremophiles in such environment. In this work, a total of 73 and 29 bacterial strains were isolated by using alkaline and saline media, respectively, while bacteria from mature landfill leachate growing in these media were enumerated as 1.

Bacterial Community Structures in Freshwater Polar Environments of Svalbard.

Two thirds of Svalbard archipelago islands in the High Arctic are permanently covered with glacial ice and snow. Polar bacterial communities in the southern part of Svalbard were characterized using an amplicon sequencing approach. A total of 52,928 pyrosequencing reads were analyzed in order to reveal bacterial community structures in stream and lake surface water samples from the Fuglebekken and Revvatnet basins of southern Svalbard.