Saline lakes are water bodies with salinity greater than 3 g/l (0.3%), while hypersaline lakes are water bodies that surpass the moderate 35 g/l (3.5%) salt of oceans. Hypersaline lakes, could either be thalassohaline (which are creations of evaporation of seawater and as such contain sodium chloride as the major salt, with a salinity that surpasses that of seawater by a factor of 5–10, with a neutral or slightly alkaline pH). Whereas, athalassohaline lakes stem from non-seawater sources and are made up of high concentrations of ions such as magnesium and calcium and sundry other ions such as potassium, or sodium in smaller amounts. This work has revealed the biodegradation potentials of some halophiles isolated from Uburu and Okposi salt lakes. The isolates recovered in descending order of salt tolerance were Aspergillus flavipes (13mm at 40%), Penicillium citrinum (10mm at 40%), Aspergillus ochraceus (9mm at 40%), Aspergillus nomius (15mm at 35%), Microsphaeropsis arundinis (12mm at 35%), Aspergillus sydowi (28mm at 30%), Penicillium janthinellum (26mm at 30%), Mucor sp (13mm at 30%), Aureobasidium sp (12mm at 30%), Trichoderma sp (9mm at 30%), Alternaria sp. (22mm at 25%), Aspergillus sp (18mm at 25%), Penicillium sp (20mm at 20%), Cladosporium sp. (7mm at 15%) and identified using ITS rDNA Sequencing (Macrogen, South Korea). They belonged to the borderline extreme halophiles and moderate halophiles respectively. The biodegradative potential of Aspergillus flavipes was ascertained by testing it against 2%, 4% and 6% crude oil and it grew only on 2 % crude oil-Bushnell-Haas broth with a fungal count of 2.56x105 cfu/ml. Crude oil degradation rate was evaluated biweekly gravimetrically with 22% degradation in 2 weeks, 36% in 4 weeks, 67% in 6 weeks and 89% in 8 weeks; as well as by way of gas chromatography (GC-FID), which showed that fractions C10-C11 were significantly degraded, C12-C20, moderately degraded and C26-C34, insignificantly degraded.
Biodegradation, Potentials, Aspergillus flavipes, Uburu, Okposi, Salt Lakes
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