Chemometric study on the biochemical marker of the manglicolous fungi to illustrate its potentiality as a bio indicator for heavy metal pollution in Indian Sundarbans

Highlights: • Manglicolous fungi are effective tool to assess pollution in the mangrove sediment. • Chemometric variables were kept as per indigenous mangrove sediment parameters. • Maximum enzyme activity was observed in high temperature, salinity and alkaline pH. • Toxic metal ions disrupt the enzyme activity of the manglicolous fungi. • In vitro study provides baseline dataset for predictive analysis of mangrove health. The study represents in vitro chemometric approach for assessing the heavy metal pollution in Indian Sundarbans. Physio-chemical and elemental characterisation of the sediment samples of Indian Sundarbans had shown high enrichments of toxic metal ions. It was characterised by elevated enrichment factors (2.16–10.12), geo-accumulation indices (0.03 –1.21), contamination factors (0.7–3.43) and pollution load indices (1.0–1.25) which showed progressive sediment quality deterioration and ecotoxicological risk due to metal ions contamination. The physio-chemical parameters of the sediments were replicated and computational chemometric modeling was utilized to assess fungal metabolic growth. All the fungi isolates had shown maximum metabolic activity in high temperature, alkaline pH, and high salinity. Further, the fungal metabolic activity was assessed in different gradient of heavy metal concentration. The significant deterioration of biochemical marker with increasing concentration of heavy metal indicates the status of the microbial health due to toxic metal pollution in the mangrove habitat.