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"We are talking about pollutants distributed in the atmosphere, regardless of the place of emission, who are able to travel to remote areas," said the researcher at the study on the study published in the scientific journal Microbiome.
Fungi are "able to degrade compounds and even use pollutants as a source of energy in a process we call mineralization," he said.
When they are subject to the action of pollutants such as pentachlorophenol, used in agricultural pesticides, fungal communities specialize and "change the way they work to survive the attack".
Metabolism disorders
There are "dramatic changes in metabolism" and fungi are becoming "more resistant to antifungals and antibiotics," he said.
The "chemical design" of pentachlorophenol is common to many herbicides and "there can be many other" chemical compounds with the same effect.
This increased resistance adds to their greater ability to survive warmer temperatures such as those resulting from climate change.
Scientific research will now "prove that there is an increase in virulence," said Cristina Silva Pereira, noting that with human mobility, "there are now spores everywhere."
Fungi cause "opportunistic infections" that kill "1.5 million to two million people worldwide each year".
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