Mycological processing

The samples were processed in a biological safety level 2 laminar flow cabinet. Sabouraud agar with chloramphenicol (0.5 g/L) was used as the culture medium for primary isolation in Petri dishes. A 100-μL aliquot of the SW samples was spread on the medium after homogenization. The S samples were centrifuged for 20 min at 3000 rpm and the supernatant was removed and the sediment was resuspended in 2 mL of sterile 0.9% NaCl solution. Then, the suspension was agitated in a vortex mixer for 3 min and left to rest for 30 min at 25 °C. Afterwards, 100-μL aliquots of the supernatant of each sample were spread on the culture medium. The inoculated Petri dishes were incubated at 25 °C for 10 days, and were with daily observed daily to note any microbiological growth. The colony forming units (CFUs) were counted in all inoculated dishes.