Category: Science Communicator

In a previous post, we discussed that anaerobic fungi need anaerobic conditions to thrive. Here I will tell you a little bit about the natural habitat of our fungi.

What do you think: where on earth could we find basically oxygen-free places thriving with anaerobic fungi? Down in the deepest, darkest caves maybe? Or on the very bottom of the ocean? Definitely some exotic, mysterious, unexplored corner of the earth that can only be reached by carefully planned expeditions with all sorts of futuristic equipment, right?

Well, unfortunately not. Or at least – not that we know of. Yet. And until we have the time and money to find and explore those mysterious places, we stick to the one anaerobic habitat that is commonly found and a little bit more accessible: the gut.

In the case of our fungi, it is more specifically the gut of herbivorous animals like cows, sheep, goats, deer, etc. Why herbivores? Stay tuned and find out in my next post 😉

Until then, here is a collection of animals that harbor anaerobic fungi in their guts:

As you might already know, I’m working with anaerobic fungi. Anae-o-what now?

Anaerobic.

That means surviving and thriving only in (nearly) oxygen-free conditions.

In fact, oxygen is very toxic for my fungi; they can only tolerate very small concentrations of oxygen in their environment.

But wait, oxygen is all around us! How can you possibly work under anaerobic conditions?

Well, that’s the challenge! But it is indeed possible. One of the most important steps is creating a relatively oxygen-free environment for our fungi to thrive in.

We use thick glass serum bottles sealed with rubber stoppers and crimped with metal caps. The cultivation medium (i.e. the liquid our fungi will swim in) is boiled (which already removes some oxygen) and bubbled with carbon dioxide (CO2), to ensure anaerobic conditions. Transfer of our fungi between bottles is done by injection to limit their exposure to oxygen.

Check out the picture gallery below to see what the procedure for preparing fresh medium for anaerobic fungi can look like:

(c) Pictures taken by me; the skilled hands you see belong to my colleague Nico 😎 You can check out the cool FWF-funded HiPoAF project we are working on here.