Effect of nutritional and environmental factors on cellulase production by streptomyces albaduncus from the gut of earthworm, eisenia foetida

Earthworms are eco-friendly and play a variety of roles in agro ecosystem. The gut of earthworm is the factory to manufacture the beneficial microbial densities and their products. The excreted nutrients enrich thousand times more than the surrounding soil. Experiments have proven that crops grown in earthworm inhabitant soils had increased the yields from 25% to over 30% than in earthworm free soils. Researchers had reported that bacteria living in the gut of worms would breakdown many hazardous chemicals such as hexachloro cyclohexane (HCH) into detoxified forms maintaining the biological buffering of the soil. Most of the agricultural lands are recorded for lower abundance of earthworms (or) leading to abandon the croplands due to the lack of favorable conditions influencing the growth of plants. Investigation of the interaction of actinomycetes with soil invertebrates is one of the ways to study the development in biogeocenoses. The earthworm gut is favorable for the development of actinomycetes due to neutral pH, optimal humidity and temperature. Cellulose is considered as one of the most important sources of carbon on this planet. Cellulose degradation and its subsequent utilization is important for global carbon sources. The value of cellulose as a renewable source of energy has made cellulose hydrolysis as the subject of intense research and industrial interest. The bioconversion of cellulosic materials has been receiving attention in recent years. It is now a subject of interest for the contribution and to the development of a large-scale conversion processes beneficial to mankind. Agricultural waste and in fact all celluloses can be converted into products that are of commercial importance such as ethanol, glucose and single cell protein. Cellulase enzyme has been reported as one of the commercialized products from the bioconversion of cellulosic materials. The role of microbial activity in the earthworm gut, cast and soil is very essential for the degradation of organic wastes for the release of nutrients to plants. During vermicomposting organic matter undergoes, physico-chemical and bio-chemical changes by the combined effect of earthworm gut flora and also other microbial activities. Earthworm transforms the constituents of organic waste into a more useful vermicompost initially by grinding and digestion by aerobic and anaerobic microflora. Much of the research on vermicomposting had been focused on the changes in the chemical parameters.