Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Degradation of plant cell wall polymers
- 2 The biochemistry of ligninolytic fungi
- 3 Bioremediation potential of white rot fungi
- 4 Fungal remediation of soils contaminated with persistent organic pollutants
- 5 Formulation of fungi for in situ bioremediation
- 6 Fungal biodegradation of chlorinated monoaromatics and BTEX compounds
- 7 Bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by ligninolytic and non-ligninolytic fungi
- 8 Pesticide degradation
- 9 Degradation of energetic compounds by fungi
- 10 Use of wood-rotting fungi for the decolorization of dyes and industrial effluents
- 11 The roles of fungi in agricultural waste conversion
- 12 Cyanide biodegradation by fungi
- 13 Metal transformations
- 14 Heterotrophic leaching
- 15 Fungal metal biosorption
- 16 The potential for utilizing mycorrhizal associations in soil bioremediation
- 17 Mycorrhizas and hydrocarbons
- Index
8 - Pesticide degradation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Degradation of plant cell wall polymers
- 2 The biochemistry of ligninolytic fungi
- 3 Bioremediation potential of white rot fungi
- 4 Fungal remediation of soils contaminated with persistent organic pollutants
- 5 Formulation of fungi for in situ bioremediation
- 6 Fungal biodegradation of chlorinated monoaromatics and BTEX compounds
- 7 Bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by ligninolytic and non-ligninolytic fungi
- 8 Pesticide degradation
- 9 Degradation of energetic compounds by fungi
- 10 Use of wood-rotting fungi for the decolorization of dyes and industrial effluents
- 11 The roles of fungi in agricultural waste conversion
- 12 Cyanide biodegradation by fungi
- 13 Metal transformations
- 14 Heterotrophic leaching
- 15 Fungal metal biosorption
- 16 The potential for utilizing mycorrhizal associations in soil bioremediation
- 17 Mycorrhizas and hydrocarbons
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Although responsible for saving and improving the quality of human life, pesticides have exerted a significant detrimental effect on the environment and have caused serious health problems, resulting in severe criticism of their use (Hayes, 1986). There is often a fundamental conflict between the need for a sustained level of biological activity of a pesticide in the environment and the requirement that the chemical should be degraded to non-toxic and ecologically safe products (Hill, 1978; Casida & Quistad, 1998). The era of modern synthetic pesticides largely dates from 1939 when the insecticidal properties of 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane (DDT) were discovered (Tessier, 1982). Unlike naturally occurring organic compounds, which are readily degraded upon introduction into the environment, some pesticides such as DDT are extremely resistant to biode-gradation by native microflora (Rochkind-Dubinsky, Sayler & Blackburn, 1987a). In most cases, the persistence can be explained by the chemical structure and by the degree of water solubility. In addition, some of these pesticides tend to accumulate in organisms at different trophic levels of the food chain. Chlorinated organic pesticides are one of the major groups of toxic chemicals responsible for environmental contamination and an important potential risk to human health (Kullman & Matsumura, 1996).
The most common pesticides are herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, where herbicides account for nearly 50% of all the pesticides used in developed countries and insecticides account for 75% of all pesticides used in developing countries.
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- Information
- Fungi in Bioremediation , pp. 188 - 223Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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