Metabolic degradation Metabolic pesticides degradation is carried out by soil microbial population harbouring specific catabolic enzymes allowing complete mineralization of target compound. A large number of pesticide degrading fungal and bacterial strains have been isolated and characterized from the soil environment (Hussain et al. 2009b). Although often metabolic biodegradation can leads to incomplete degradation resulting in the formation of metabolites (Turnbull et al. 2001; Hangler et al. 2007; Badawi et al. 2009). However, up to now, the full mineralization of the pesticides has been found to be taking place only by the soil bacteria. The enzymes required for metabolic degradation of pesticides are either harboured by a single microorganism or scattered in various microbial populations working as a cooperative consortium, jointly involved in the degradation of the pesticides (Fournier et al. 1996).
