Mycology Research Project

Articles

Soil Restoration Course

Gallery

Education

Presentations

Explore

Articles

Soil fungi biomass experiment

jute decomposition experiment

In April 2022, the Mycology Project participants worked up a sweat burying cotton and hessian (jute) strips in various soils to examine the fungal decomposition of these materials over a two month period.

Suella and Anne-Mary kindly donated the materials and Suella came prepared to cut them into 20x10cm strips.

⁠

Several soil spots were chosen to compare: forest soil near an ephemeral creek, forest edge under the grass near trees, road edge under grass, eroded bank and within a Johnson-Su bioreactor filled with forest mulch.

⁠

⁠

⁠

Three cotton and three jute strips were soaked in water, wrung out, and buried within each hole.

⁠

cotton and hessian busrial_IMG_3176.jpeg

⁠

Colour coded rocks were placed on the burial site to distinguish the location of the strips.

⁠

⁠

⁠

Two months later we attempted to excavate the strips which proved to be difficult to find them. In some cases we could not find the cotton strips at all, some may have been completely decomposed. The jute (hessian) strips were present in all burial spots, so these were analysed for the fungal biomass which was decomposing them.

⁠

It was interesting to see an abundance and the variation in earthworm numbers around the strips. Their favourite food is fungi and each species has a preference for different fungi species, so having Earthworms in the soil indicates the presence of some fungal biomass.

⁠

Some jute remains were covered in mycelium.

⁠

⁠

Fungal biomass was measured through hyphal cell counts using a microscope in 1ml samples of:

soil around the jute fibre

soil washed off the jute fibre

growing in the jute fibre

Fungal hyphae colonising jute fibre at 400x magnification

⁠

Screen Shot 2022-10-24 at 12.41.54 pm.png

⁠

The forest edge soil contained the greatest biomass of soil fungi, followed by forest soil, road edge soil and the eroded bank soil:

⁠

Screen Shot 2022-10-24 at 12.54.47 pm.png

⁠

Here is a comparison of the fungal biomass in the various soils comparing the various samples analysed:

⁠

Screen Shot 2022-12-14 at 12.49.24 pm.png

⁠

Note the low fugal biomass on the jute strands in the “grass and gavel edge soil,” these jute strands were heavily colonised by Oomycetes which are fungi like organisms but are no longer classified as fungi. They are a group of filamentous, unicellular protists that physically resemble fungi, but differ from fungi in having cellulose instead of chitin in their cell walls and their hyphae have no septa. Many members of this group are associated with plant diseases.

The experiment was a preliminary attempt to quantify fungal biomass in various soils which had varying degrees of plant cover. Overall there appears to be a trend in fungal biomass directly related to plant diversity present, which would translate into the diversity and amount of organic matter present in the soil to feed the fungi. Interestingly the soil on the forest edge displayed a greater biomass of fungi compared with the forest soil. Perhaps the fact that more plant cover was present compared with with relatively bare soil in the forest might explain this difference? A more thorough investigation would have to be engaged with greater replication in order to statistically determine the average fungal biomass across the different soils.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.