Biodiversity of Fungi from Lead Contaminated Industrial Waste Water and Tolerance of Lead Metal Ion by Dominant Fungi

Lead is important heavy metal found in different parts of the world and its high concentration releases in the environment due to anthropogenic activities. Industries are major sources of emission of lead in the environment. In present study, lead concentration was studied from coal based iron manufacturing industries, iron casting industry and petrochemical industry. The lead concentrations were studied from May, 2010 to April, 2011. All studied industries release lead concentration higher than the permissible limit of standard. Fungi were isolated from industrial effluent containing more than 1.0 mg LG1 of lead concentration. Dominant fungi isolated from high concentration of lead were further studied for tolerance against lead nitrate. Total 161 colonies of 37 species were isolated from industrial effluent in which genera of Aspergillus were found dominant. Maximum fungi were obtained from Columbia Petrochemical industry. Diversity of fungi is affected according to season and industries. Some fungi were found in all three season and also in high concentration of lead contaminated waste water. The dominant fungi were found tolerant against high concentration of lead nitrate. Hence, these fungi will utilize as biosorbent for absorption of lead from aqueous solution using ecofriendly method.