The potential for bioremediation through the mycelium, the vegetative part of fungi, in a process known as mycoremediation, usually isn’t on the front of one’s mind when they see a mushroom, it wasn’t on mine until my internship at Fungaia. While the understanding of fungi in their role as an environmental or medical mediator may not equate that of plants, since having only been classified in their own kingdom in 1969, the need for fungal intervention in combatting pollutants cannot be underestimated, which is why I’ve decided to write my thesis on the remediation capacities of mycelium through water treatment experiments.
With increasing populations happening around the globe, the need to increase the rate of agricultural has led to an egregious amount of soil and water pollutants as farms worldwide turn to toxic chemicals to help them meet the food demand. Among the worst of these toxins is glyphosate, used most heavily in a product called RoundUp, a commercial herbicide currently on the store shelves and homes in numbers close to the hundreds of millions. Advertised as benign to non—targets: including soils, water ways, animals, etc. Glyphosate is far from safe for the environment, having been linked to changes in the metabolism, growth and reproduction of aquatic animals, increased eutrophication, and altering the metabolic systems of essential insects such as honeybees. These effects are also compounded by the fact that glyphosate does not immediately evaporate or dissolve resulting in residues that can be detected in water for as long as several years, suggesting that the chemical could build to higher levels in prolonged use. In addition to its basic molecular structure, glyphosate transforms into a secondary toxin, AMPA, once applied, which only further complicates efforts to clean polluted areas having to combat two contaminants.
Mung bean sprout controls
Last year, two previous interns started the base work of this project by growing out generations of the same species of fungi on petri dishes and exposing each generation to higher levels of glyphosate. It was imperative that the fungi show vigorous growth despite the presence of the glyphosate, indicating that it could at least tolerate the toxin, and leading to the next step of this experiment; testing the potential for the same fungus to filter the toxin from water. My part in the experiment involves growing out mung beans in a control trial, separating them into different groups of chemical exposure (concentrations of glyphosate vary from .01% to 100%), and taking what we observe the effect of these chemical concentrations to be on the plant before introducing a filter process; how quickly the plant died, where the chemical was most noticeable (stunting growth / browning), etc. This will involve roughly 15 mycelium filters from the original three fungal specimen, running water through the filters at different concentrations of glyphosate (equal to those used in the control group) in the same time intervals and watering a different set of mung beans with the water from different filters to compare to the control group.
As I beforementioned, there is a secondary chemical, AMPA, that we have taken into account and will be adjusting by running some of the filtered water through twice, both to account for the secondary chemical and attest to the efficacy of the filters after it’s been used. We decided to design this experiment in the most basic means possible and hopefully by doing this, we can achieve two expectations: 1. that the use of mycelium as a filter for toxins could present a noticeable improvement in plant growth and 2. encouraging the potential for someone else, possibly another WIG intern, to conduct a quantitative analysis of the water and filters via chemical assessments to better understand where the chemical is going, if it is being broken down, and which technique is the most successful in eliminating it all together (rather one generation is more successful/tolerant, if the water needs multiple runs through the filter, if the filters cannot be used more than once, etc). My addition to this experiment, while encompassing the entirety of my thesis, is only a portion of the potential Fungaia hopes to show in the bioremediation properties of fungi, but I am very proud of our work so far!
Experiences like Raquel’s are made possible by the Whitman Internship Grant, which provides funding for students to participate in unpaid internships at nonprofit, some for-profit, and government organizations. We are happy to be sharing blog posts from students who were supported by either a summer, fall, spring, or year-long grants at organizations, businesses, and research labs all around the world. To learn how you could secure a Whitman Internship Grant or host a Whitman intern at your organization, contact us at ccec_info@whitman.edu.