Mycoremediation
Mycoremediation
- Volunteers prepare mycoremediation burritos out of inoculated straw and cardboard.
People For Puget Sound is excited to be one of the few restoration organizations applying innovative new techniques of mycoremediation to help address water quality issues. It’s especially fascinating as we are also conducting mycorestoration research with Eco-Techs at sites along the Duwamish and Snohomish Rivers, as well as on Maury Island. The focus of these experiments is to improve plant survivability at sites with especially poor soils by the application of mycorrhizal mushrooms, which form a symbiotic relationship with the roots – resulting in a beneficial nutrient exchange and, hopefully, healthier, happier plants.
Mycoremediation takes a bit of a different approach, harnessing the ecology of the mushrooms themselves to address contaminated water and sediment. Mushrooms are great decomposers- adapted to digest cellulose and lignin, the main building blocks of plant tissue. These molecules are very similar in structure to the complex organic and synthetic chemical compounds that humans have released into the environment. Mushroom strains have been identified that can consume a wide array of contaminants- from bacteria like E. coli to industrial pollutants like dioxins to heavy metals and even chemical weapons.
There has been a lot of research on the amazing capabilities of fungi, but it has been challenging to take the techniques out of the lab and into the field. We are trying to do just that at the Cayou Lagoon restoration site on Orcas Island. A residential development nearby is likely contributing to elevated fecal coliform and ammonia levels found in surface and subsurface fresh water flowing through our restoration site and into the estuary. People For Puget Sound worked with the landowner and a local mycologist to select, harvest, and propagate native mushroom strains known to be effective at treating this kind of residential pollution. Substrate, in this case pasteurized straw, was inoculated with the mushroom spawn and distributed in a cozy bed of wood chips at the restoration site. We then built a network of woodchip trails throughout the treatment area, which provides a growing medium highway for the mushroom mycelium to use to travel throughout the site. Check out the image below to see a view of our mycelium trails from space!
This is some very cool and inspiring science, and we are working hard to maintain and adaptively manage this mycoremediation installation so we can learn how to make this technology work in the real world. Check back for results of water quality sampling and other effectiveness monitoring!
Mycoremediation Links:
- NEW! Read the Blog: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the Sound
- Scientific Papers documenting mycoremediation effects:
- Fungi Perfecti, based out of Olympia, is one of the leading groups pioneering mycoremediation technologies.
Contact: Rachel Benbrook, North Sound Restoration Ecologist
Funding for this work is provided by NOAA, Restore America's Estuaries, and the Mountaineers Foundation
