The xylanase activities obtained with these strains are significantly below those found for fungi (80.5 U ml l21) (Shah & Madamwar, 2005), including A. pullulans (42.3 U ml21; Bhadra et al., 2008), and bacteria such as Streptomyces species (Nascimento et al., 2003), but similar to those of other yeasts grown under similar conditions (Adsul et al.,2009).