ABSTRACT
The majority of pesticides exhibit limited stability in the environment and in plants and animals; it is an extremely important property of these compounds, which, on the one hand, determines the ef…ciency of their action, and, on the other, permits the safe use of agricultural products by humans. The fate of pesticides in the soil depends on the chemical transformations in which the living organisms participate (biotic, biochemical transformations) and on the physical, chemical, and photochemical processes. Biotic transformations catalyzed by the enzymes of soil microorganisms predominate. The highest ability of ef…cient degradation of pesticides is exhibited by bacteria, Actinomycetes, and mushrooms. The contribution of mushrooms is the greatest, reaching even up to 80%. There are at least two causes of this high activity of soil mushrooms: greater resistance to unfavorable vegetation conditions in comparison to bacteria (mushrooms exhibit high liveliness in acidic environment, even at pH < 5) and greater ability of degradation of pesticides by mushroom enzymes. Soil microorganisms exhibiting highest activity in degradation of pesticides comprise bacteria from the species Arthrobacter, Bacillus, Corynebacterium, Flavobacterium, and Pseudomonas; Actinomycetes of the Nocardia and Streptomyces species; and mushrooms of the Penicillium, Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Trichoderma species.
