As the Earth warms, alternatives to traditional farming are crucial. Exploring fungi, especially poly extremophilic and extremotolerant species, to be used as plant probiotics, represents a promising option. Extremophilic fungi offer avenues for developing and producing innovative biofertilizers, effective biocontrol agents against plant pathogens, and resilient enzymes active under extreme conditions, all of which are crucial to enhance agricultural efficiency and sustainability through improved soil fertility and decreased reliance on agrochemicals. Yet, extremophilic fungi’s potential remains underexplored and, therefore, comprehensive research is needed to understand their roles as tools to foster sustainable agriculture practices amid climate change. Efforts should concentrate on unraveling the complex dynamics of plant-fungi interactions and harnessing extremophilic fungi’s ecological functions to influence plant growth and development. Aspects such as plant’s epigenome remodeling, fungal extracellular vesicle production, secondary metabolism regulation, and impact on native soil microbiota are among many deserving to be explored in depth. Caution is advised, however, as extremophilic and extremotolerant fungi can act as both mitigators of crop diseases and as opportunistic pathogens, underscoring the necessity for balanced research to optimize benefits while mitigating risks in agricultural settings.

Wood-decay fungi are characterized by ligninolytic and hydrolytic enzymes that act through non-specific oxidation and hydrolytic reactions. The objective of this work was to evaluate the production of lignocellulolytic enzymes from collected fungi and to analyze their growth on lignocellulosic material. The study considered 18 species isolated from collections made in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, identified by taxonomic and molecular techniques, finding 11 different families. The growth rates of each isolate were obtained in culture media with African palm husk (PH), coffee husk (CH), pine sawdust (PS), and glucose as control, measuring daily growth with images analyzed in ImageJ software, finding the highest growth rate in the CH medium. The potency index (PI) of cellulase, xylanase, and manganese peroxidase (MnP) activities was determined, as well as the quantification of lignin peroxidase (LiP), with the strains Phlebiopsis flavidoalba TecNM-ITTG L20-19 and Phanerochaete sordida TecNM-ITTG L32-1-19 being the ones with the highest PI of hydrolase activities with 2.01 and 1.83 cellulase PI and 1.95 and 2.24 xylanase PI, respectively, while Phlebiopsis flavidoalba TecNM-ITTG L20-19 and Trametes sanguinea TecNM-ITTG L14-19 with 7115 U/L LiP activity had the highest oxidase activities, indicating their ability to oxidize complex molecules such as lignin.

Continuous production processes and an adequate supply of raw materials are necessary to satisfy the growing demand for biodiesel. The use of different feed oils could be necessary to ensure sufficient supply for biodiesel production in certain circumstances; however, changing feed oil during the operation of a continuous reactor causes process disturbances. The present study analyses the effect of feed oil changes on the continuous operation of a industrial continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) using a model which takes the dynamics of oil changes into account. The models previously reported only consider the operation of reactor with only one vegetable oil. The model in this work was developed by mass and energy balances. A methodology to model oil changes is presented. Glycerides and esters were characterized using adequate approaches. Moreover, accurate methods for predicting essential properties in the biodiesel manufacturing were used for the estimation of their thermo-physical properties. The kinetic parameters of the transesterifications were calculated from consistent studies selected from an exhaustive literature revision. The results show that temperature is practically not affected after oil changes; however, the ester concentration varies considerably. The ester mass fraction varying by up to 22.07% after an disturbance.