Bioprospecting cultivable microorganisms from the Pantanal reveals taxonomic and functional enzymatic diversity

The Pantanal is one of the world’s largest tropical wetlands, yet its cultivable microbial diversity remains underexplored for biotechnological applications. We bioprospected cultivable bacteria, filamentous fungi, and yeasts from environmental samples collected across 10 Pantanal sites and screened them for seven enzymatic activities. A total of 122 isolates were recovered, comprising 73 bacteria, 46 filamentous fungi, and 3 yeasts, representing 51 taxonomic groups and 37 enzymatic profiles. Protease activity was the most frequent among bacteria (71.2%), all filamentous fungi were cellulase-positive, and chitinase activity was detected in only five bacterial isolates. Taxonomic diversity among enzyme-positive isolates varied according to activity and sample origin, with Shannon–Wiener diversity index values ranging from 0 to 2.86. Significant positive associations were observed between protease–lipase, laccase–amylase, and protease–amylase, whereas no origin–activity association remained significant after multiple-testing correction. Phylogenetic analyses identified three particularly divergent or taxonomically unresolved bacterial lineages: P_1.1_002 within Rothia , P_13.1_002 within Pseudomonas , and P_10.3_001 within the order Enterobacterales. These findings reveal broad taxonomic and functional diversity among cultivable Pantanal microorganisms and identify lineages of interest for further taxonomic and biotechnological investigation.