*2.1. Fungal Species and Inoculum*

Filamentous fungi *Aspergillus carbonarius* M333 were obtained from the Department of Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Mersin University, Mersin, Turkey. This fungus was maintained on a potato dextrose agar (PDA, Merck, Darmstadt, Germany) slant at 4 ◦C and sub-cultured monthly. *A. carbonarius* was transferred to PDA medium in Petri dishes in a UV laminar chamber (Faster, UCS2–4, Ferrara, Italy) and incubated at 25 ± 1 ◦C for 7 d. After incubation, spores of fungus were individually harvested from the surface of the Petri dishes. A suspension of spores was prepared in sterile distilled water containing Tween 80 (0.1%, Fisher). The concentration of fungus was then adjusted to <sup>1</sup> <sup>×</sup> 106 colony-forming unit/mL by using a Thoma cell counting chamber [33]. The spore suspension of *A. carbonarius* was used for inoculation for further studies.
