Mycelial pellets prepared using a marine-derived Penicillium janthinellum sp. strain (P1) were applied as biosorbents to remove dyes from aqueous solutions. Nine different dyes were studied and the effects of pH and salt concentration on the decolorization processes were investigated. The results showed that the mycelial pellet was effective in removing dyes from their water solutions. Moreover, it was found that pH was an important factor of the decolorization process and the best dye removal performance was achieved when pH = 5.0. The adsorption process of the live mycelial pellets was not affected by high salt concentrations. In addition, the mycelial pellets retained 91.3% of the original decolorization activity after five reusing cycles without any desorption treatments. The adsorption isotherms indicated that the biosorption process agreed well with the Langmuir isotherm model with a maximum biosorption capacity of 344.83 mg g(dry)(-1) and the kinetic adsorption results showed that the biosorption process followed a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.