BIODIVERSITAS ISSN: 1412-033X Volume 22, Number 11, November 2021 E-ISSN: 2085-4722 Pages: 5077-5084 DOI: 10.13057/biodiv/d221145 The diversity of fungi consortium isolated from polluted soil for degrading petroleum hydrocarbon RIRYN NOVIANTY 1,♥ , SARYONO 1 , AMIR AWALUDDIN 1, NOVA WAHYU PRATIWI 2 , ANNISA HIDAYAH 1 , ERIWINA JULIANTARI 3 1 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Riau. Jl. Subrantas Km. 12,5, Kampus Bina Widya Simpang Baru, Tampan, Pekanbaru 28293, Riau, Indonesia. Tel.: +62-761-63273, ♥ email: rirynnovianty@lecturer.unri.ac.id 2 Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Riau. Jl. Subrantas Km. 12,5, Kampus Bina Widya Simpang Baru, Tampan, Pekanbaru 28293, Riau, Indonesia 3 Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institut Pertanian Bogor. Jl. Meranti, Kampus IPB Dramaga, Bogor 16680, West Java, Indonesia Manuscript received: 20 September 2021. Revision accepted: 26 October 2021. Abstract. Novianty R, Saryono, Awaluddin A, Pratiwi NW, Hidayah A, Juliantari E. 2021. The diversity of fungi consortium isolated from polluted soil for degrading petroleum hydrocarbon. Biodiversitas 22: 5077-5084. One of the major problems in the petroleum industry nowadays is crude oil spills. Riau Province, Sumatra is one of the largest oil producers in Indonesia. Accidental releases of petroleum products are of particular concern to the environment. The process of drilling and refining petroleum generates a large amount of oil sludge. One of the effective technologies used in the waste degradation process is bioremediation using certain microorganisms. The prime objective of the current research was to evaluate the efficiency of fungi consortiums in crude oil degradation in Bumi Siak Pusako-Pertamina Hulu, Indonesia. There are three potential fungi isolates as petroleum hydrocarbon degradation agents with four consortium variations. The parameter values of Optical Density (OD), pH, and diluted CO2 were measured on 0, 4, 8, and 16 days. To evaluate the fungal biodegradation activity using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The result showed that consortium II (KF II) has the highest potential to degrade petroleum hydrocarbon (50.61%). The visual GC-MS examination confirmed a decrease in the peak area for eight hydrocarbon compounds, indicating the efficiency of the fungi in the oil decomposition and dismantling of hydrocarbons. Our findings may provide new information on native fungal resources from chronically contaminated terrestrial environments, and will be useful for petroleum-contaminated bioremediation and other industrial applications. Keywords: Biodegradation, crude oil, fungi consortiums, petroleum contaminants INTRODUCTION Riau Province, Sumatra, is one of the largest oil producers in Indonesia. The growth of the petroleum industry in Riau triggers environmental pollution. The pollution could be caused either by production or distribution activities (Grifoni et al. 2017). Activities of the petroleum industry (drilling, refining, production processes, and transport) generally produce waste oil and spill in land area. Waste and spills will be increased in line with increased activity in the field of the petroleum industry. Improper handling can cause environmental pollution and be dangerous for living beings and the environment (Darsa et al. 2014; Adeogun and Adekunle 2015; Taha et al. 2020). Petroleum crude oil waste contains high molecular weighted aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. These compounds in the environment will cause the death of living beings due to decreased oxygen levels, direct toxicity of hazardous substances from some hydrocarbons such as naphthalene, anthracene, and phenanthrene which is carcinogenic (Al-hawash et al. 2018). The level of toxicity of petroleum hydrocarbons can be acute or chronic. The effect of acute toxicity generally attacks the central nervous system. Chronic toxic properties can affect bone marrow cell damage and cause cancer (Khan et al. 2018). One of the methods to overcome the environmental pollution caused by crude oil waste is using biological agents such as microorganisms that can degrade petroleum hydrocarbons (Xu et al. 2018). The effort is known as bioremediation. Bioremediation is a waste or contaminated environment treatment technology by utilizing the local biota originating from the polluted environment. Local biota is a petrophysics indigen microbe that can degrade the hydrocarbon component. The ability of petroleum degrading microbes can be enhanced by combining several isolates of microorganisms (consortium) (Titah et al. 2018). There are several benefits of microbes that degrade oil, such as the ability to adapt and thrive in their environment and the ability to degrade hydrocarbons (Kermani et al. 2015; Sari and Trihadiningrum 2019; Olawale et al. 2020). The indigenous microorganisms, both bacteria (Novianty et al. 2020a) and fungi (Sari et al. 2019; Hamad 2021), have degraded hydrocarbon components. Naphthalene toxic compounds can also be degraded by bacteria (Novianty et al. 2020b) and fungi (Fitrida et al. 2020a). The addition of glucose co-substrate as a carbon source can also increase the biodegradability of naphthalene by bacteria (Smith et al. 2015) and fungi