Ournal of Pplied Cience and Nvironmental Anagement

Investigations were carried out to determine the composition of fungal flora in the studied sites. Samples of the raw effluent were collected along the flow channel and the retention pond. Water samples were also collected at the discharge point and up and down stream of the river from the discharge point. The samples were spinned at a speed of 250rpm for 10minutes and spread inoculated the deposits on potato carrot agar (PCA) and potato agar supplemented with 7.5% Nacl. Inoculated plates were incubated aerobically at room temperature in dark cupboard for 7days. Fungal colonies that emerged on the primary culture plates were distinguished into types. The pure isolates were characterized into genera using standard taxonomic guides. Genera such as Aspergillus, Penicillium, Curvularia, Fusarium, Microsporum, Trichoderma, Rhizoctonia, Nigrospora and Chaetophoma species were detected in the raw effluent. However, Microsporum, Trichoderma, Rhizoctonia, Nigrospora and Chaetophoma species were conspicuously absent in the effluent retention pond. Only Trichoderma and Chaetophoma species were absent in water samples collected at the treated effluent discharge point into the recipient River. Samples of water collected up stream of the discharge point did not contain Geotrichum, Nigrospora and Chaetophoma species. Curvularia, Microsporum, Rhizoctonia and Nigrospora species were not detected in water samples collected downstream of the discharge point. It was therefore concluded that, fungi constitute a significant proportion of the microflora of sites contaminated with the refinery effluent and could be playing an important role in the remediation of sites receiving the effluent. © JASEM http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v18i4.5 Introduction Effluents that emanate from petroleum refineries and other petrochemical industries are characterized by high levels of greases, oil and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Zhu et al., 2001; Bako et al., 2002; Vanhamme et al., 2003). Other components of such effluents have been reported to include phenols, metal derivatives, surface active substances, sulfides and naphthylenic acids (Sulemanov, 1995; Zhu et al., 2001) in addition to toxic heavy metals (Ayenimo et al., 2005; Beddri and Ismail, 2007). In addition to the direct toxicity of chemical components of the effluents, the temperature, pH and osmotic conditions prevalent within the effluents pose additional challenge to survival of most life forms (Ayenimo et al., 2005). Against the background of these reports, it is conceivable that, terrestrial and aquatic sites that serve as recipients of raw and partially treated refinery effluents could be contaminated. Reports of heavy metal contamination of soils (Kinle et al., 1987; Amar et al., 1993) and surface and underground water bodies (Ayenimo et al., 2007; Adewuyi and Olowu, 2012) lend strong support to this assertion. Regardless of the inhospitable conditions that prevail within the body of the effluent as well as the effluent contaminated sites, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic microorganisms have been reported with the capacity to survive and grow therein (Edward and White, 1997; Martins et al., 2010). Among the eukaryotes, fungi are considered the most ubiquitous owing to their capacity to grow using a wide range of hydrocarbons (Kari et al., 2003) in the presence of high levels of toxic heavy metal ions (Ulfig et al.,2003; Ayenimo et al., 2005; Shankar et al., 2007; Bako et al., 2008). These reports strongly suggest that, fungi constitute a significant proportion of the total microbial flora of the refinery effluent and effluent contaminated sites. This paper is a report of an investigation aimed at verifying the occurrence and generic composition of the mycoflora in the raw effluent, effluent retention pond of Kaduna refinery and petrochemical company Composition of Fungal Flora in Raw Refinery Effluent 593 * 1 MACHIDO, DA;, YAKUBU, SE;*EZEONUEGBU, BA (KRPC) and Romi River that received the partially