Screening And Identification Of Vegetable Oil Degrading Microorganisms

                                                                   ABSTRACT

Vegetable oils embedded in soil samples and Avuvu Akwu collected from oil-producing areas were examined for six bacteria and five fungi were isolated from the samples. Among the bacterial isolates are members of the genera: Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Proteus, Staphylococcus, Lactobacillus and Achromobacter. Amongst the fun gal isolates are Penicillium, A. spergillus, Cladosporium, Geotrichum and Saccharomyces spp. Aspergillus occurred more frequently while penicIlium was the next frequently isolated fungus. bacillus predominated in the two samples. Evaluation of the ability of the micro organisms to cause degradation showed that all the fungal isolates were capable of growing on and utilizing the soil as sole carbon and energy source.