Abstract
Mangrove sediments were collected from major mangrove stands on the Red Sea Coast of Saudi Arabia. Forty five isolates belonging to 12 genera were purified and five isolates as well as their consortium were found to be able to grow in association with petroleum oil as sole carbon source under
in vitro
conditions. The isolated strains were identified based on internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA sequence analysis. The fungal strains with the greatest potentiality to degrade diesel oil, without developing antagonistic activity, were identified as
Alternaria alternata
,
Aspergillus terreus
,
Cladosporium sphaerospermum
,
Eupenicillium hirayamae
and
Paecilomyces variotii.
As compared to the controls, these fungi accumulated significantly higher biomass, produced extracellular enzymes and liberated larger volumes of CO
2
. These observations with GC–MS data confirm that these isolates displayed rapid diesel oil bioremoval and when used together as a consortium, there was no antagonistic activity.