This paper investigates Aspergillus niger's behaviour in the presence of mobile Al3+ species by evaluating the changes in oxalate exudation at various aluminium contents. When the fungus was exposed to Al3+, no significant changes in oxalate production were observed until 100 mg.L-1 aluminium was reached resulting in oxalate production decrease by 18.2%. By stripping the culture medium completely of phosphate, even more prominent decrease by 34.8% and 67.1% at 10 and 100 mg.L-1 aluminium was observed, respectively, indicating the phosphate's significance instead of Al3+ in oxalate production. Our results suggest that the low phosphate bioavailability, which most likely resulted from its interaction with Al3+, stimulated the overproduction of oxalate by A. niger. Furthermore, when the fungus was incubated in aluminium-free media supplemented with 0.1 mM of phosphate, oxalate production increased up to 281.5 μmol.g-1, while at 1.85 mM of available phosphate only 80.7 μmol.g-1 of oxalate was produced. This indicates that oxalic acid is produced by fungus not as a mean to detoxify aluminium, but as an attempt to gain access to additional phosphate.

Department of Soil Science and Soil Protection Faculty of Agrobiology Food and Natural Resources Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Kamýcka 129 Prague Suchdol 16500 Czech Republic

Institute of Laboratory Research on Geomaterials Faculty of Natural Sciences Comenius University in Bratislava Mlynská dolina 84215 Bratislava Slovakia

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