Studies on Fungal Strains of Selected Regions of Ludhiana and their Biochemical Characterization

Conservation methods often are focused on maintaining the biodiversityof a specific landscape or ecosystem. Scientist’soften provide species richness as an indicator of biodiversity. However,species richness data are problematic when attempts are madeto enumerate microfungi, particularly those from the soil. Manysoil fungi fail to sporulate, making identification difficult.Other means of assessing the importance of fungi to ecosystempreservation must be developed. Otherwise, microfungi mightbe overlooked in discussions of ecosystem management and conservationissues. Herein, we have described the varieties of fungi was isolated from soils from high and low yield areas of a field sites of selected regions of Ludhiana. Fungal Diversity was analyzed by isolation and purification of fungal cultures. In the present investigation a total Forty Two Fungal strains have been isolated from fourteen sites of Ludhiana region. The morphological study revealed that these microbial forms have multiple occurrences at multiple sites. Finally nine fungal strains were purified and physicochemical characterized to check the effect of pH (3-9) and effect of temperature (25-45o C) on their growth. The colony diameter was measured regularly between 24 hr duration. Among all fungal strains maximum strains showed the maximum growth at pH-6; while in case of other samples the maximum growth was observed in pH range of 3-9. All the fungal samples were grown at their optimum pH which has been observed to check the effect of temperature on the growth. It was observed that all the fungal strains show maximum growth at 25o C indicating their mesophilic nature. On the basis of morphological & enzyme production capacity, it was found that most of the fungal strains were of Aspergillus sp. and Fusariumsp. They were potential producers of amylase and cellulose. Some strains of Aspergillus were able to produces both enzyme at the 4th day of incubation. The cellulose production capacities were more as compared to rest of enzymes