THE ABILITY OF SOIL-BORNE FUNGI TO DEGRADE ORGANOPHOSPHONATE CARBON-TO-PHOSPHORUS BONDS

The ability of a wide variety of soil-borne fungal strains to degrade four structurally different compounds containing P-C bonds, namely the naturally occurring amino acid ciliatine, the popular herbicide glyph osate, phosphonoacetic acid and 2-amino-3-phosphonopropionic acid, was studied in order to show that soil fungi may play an important role i n the biodegradation of organophosphonates. Most of the strains appear ed to utilize ciliatine as the sole source of phosphorus for growth. O nly a limited number of strains were able to grow on the other phospho nates used in this work. The strains of Trichoderma harzianum, Scopula riopsis sp. and Aspergillus niger chosen for more detailed study show the ability to degrade ciliatine, glyphosate and also amino(3-methoxyp henyl)mehtylphosphonic acid effectively.