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American Scientist the Magazine of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society A reprint from American Scientist the magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society This reprint is provided for personal and noncommercial use. For any other use, please send a request to Permissions, American Scientist, P.O. Box 13975, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27709, U.S.A., or by electronic mail to [email protected]. ©Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society and other rightsholders The Fine Art of Decay A woodworker becomes a scientist in seeking out the perfect fungal pigments. Sara C. Robinson he sheer magnitude of decay bowls brought in by my woodshop art degree if it meant having access to in the woods of the Pacific teacher to bother with math, physics, or multiple lathes. I’m easily persuaded Northwest, where I live, is chemistry. Academics weren’t for me. by shiny pieces of metal. thrilling and sometimes over- I wanted to turn, and I wanted to do it Four years later I was blocked, left Twhelming. Life in these forests involves with brightly colored wood. with a solid grounding in art but no soggy leaves, soggy children, and that My parents were hoping I would real additional wood skills. There was ever-present smell of decomposing choose a four-year degree, any four- no one to supply me with brightly vegetative matter. Children love colored wood, either, and most to crawl around on the forest of my turnings from this time floor for treasures. And who relied on playing with the in- hasn’t enjoyed kicking apart a terface between the dark inner soundly rotten log, watching heartwood and the lighter outer the dry bits scatter, and hear- sapwood to keep my aesthetic ing the mushy bits make that attention. I was bored; I was up- delightful squelching sound? set. I wanted more information I’m certainly not one to deny about wood so that I could be such visceral pleasures of the a better woodworker, not more forest. But that log is so much history lessons. more than decay. It is an eco- Michigan Tech’s forestry pro- system, a potential nurse log gram ended up offering me the for new trees, or cover for small opportunity to learn more, but animals. Insects, bacteria, and in a rather convoluted fashion. fungi work together to provide I applied to a master’s degree a steady stream of nutrients program there through the Peace that are cycled again and again Corps, hoping that two years through the forest. It is also abroad might help quell my something much more personal: growing wanderlust. But when It is art. And it is my life. two successive placements fell I wasn’t always obsessed with through due to bad timing and fungus. As a teenager, I knew local rebellions, I was left with only that I wanted to be a wood- no option other than a standard worker, and I spent countless master of science degree. hours in my high school wood- In desperation, I contacted shop learning furniture design the only professor of wood sci- and turning. I couldn’t have ence left at MTU, Peter Laks, cared less about other subjects; by the Pigments and zone lines caused by spalting and asked him if he knew of any type time my senior year rolled around I was in sugar maple wood (Acer saccharum) show- of project that I could work on to fin- too busy turning red-stained boxelder case a stunning variety of colors. ish my degree. We chatted. I’m sure he thought I was nuts. Eventually he year degree, over a carpenter appren- asked me to bring in examples of some Sara C. Robinson is an Assistant Professor in ticeship. Through a great deal of re- work that I had really enjoyed. I pulled the anatomy of renewable materials at Oregon search on their part (I had nothing to a bright red bowl from my days in high State University in the Department of Wood do with it—I had no interest in col- school and brought it to him, gushing Science and Engineering. She is also an artist and displays her work in juried shows through- lege), they found a university that about wood colors. Boxelder wood is out the world. You can peruse her work at www. offered a four-year degree in wood- typically a pale cream color, but occa- northernspalting.com. Address: 119 Richardson working. After one trip to visit, upon sionally streaked with bright red/pink Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR seeing the room filled with lathes, I stain, usually around areas of knots or 97331. Email: [email protected] was hooked. I agreed to pursue an other wounding. This bowl showcased 206 American Scientist, Volume 102 © 2014 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. A love for lathes for wood-turning and working with brightly colored wood led to a career in science studying fungal pigments. Work in the lab resulted in colorful spalted bowls, such as this one. (All photographs courtesy of the author, unless otherwise noted.) the reason the popular term for stained it became apparent that fungi could in scientific community was particular- boxelder wood is flame stain. The con- fact cause colors on wood (although ly interested in inducing them. They versation went something like this: fungi did not cause the flame stain in were associated with decay, and wood boxelder that launched my research), scientists had spent decades trying to Dr. Laks: “Interesting bowl. What I started experimenting with fungi. keep fungi off wood to prevent struc- makes the colors?” Which ones made the appealing col- tural damage. Wood crafters and art- ors? Which ones made those neat ists weren’t too interested in fungi ei- Me: “I don’t know. Beetles? I lines? I was mesmerized by the idea ther, seeing them as either pests that think? Maybe fungus?” of living art, using pigments produced discolored wet wood or deadly hu- Dr. Laks: “Are there other colors through natural growth processes to man pathogens that should never be like this?” color wood. And, to be honest, I was brought into the house. Amusingly, mostly excited about making neon- spalted wood has actually been used Me: “Uh, maybe?” colored bowls. in craft since at least the 1500s, if not Thus my entire future was launched. Through my research I found that before, and entrepreneurs have been I pulled papers and did research. I although a lot of the pigment residues attempting to stimulate wood pig- began to delve into a history of an- left by fungi on wood, called spalting, mentation for economic gain since the cient craft and modern science. Once were known to science, no one in the very early 1900s. But no one had really www.americanscientist.org © 2014 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction 2014 May–June 207 with permission only. Contact [email protected]. been able to reproduce spalted wood but unable to cause substantial decay, winding, sometimes thick, sometimes reliably, and especially not in any type grow slowly inside the log, some be- thin line of black, brown, yellow, or- of quick time frame. fore the rots, some concurrently, some ange, green, or red, is composed of The trick to controlling wood spalt- after, digesting the easy sugars of the pigments, primarily melanin. Zone ing, it seemed, was a thorough un- wood rays and occasionally produc- lines are thought to serve a variety of derstanding of the biological process. ing melanin and other pigments in an functions depending on the fungus. Wood decay fungi in the phylum Ba- attempt to protect their resources from Some may help prevent desiccation sidiomycota, which includes all mush- desiccation, light, or other fungi. of the log; others may protect against rooms, come in two primary groups: Fungi do not always play nicely with damage from ultraviolet light. What the brown rots, which predominate each other. There are limited resources is well proven is that many white rot on conifers, and the white rots, which in any given log, and many fungi want fungi will erect zone lines if they de- prefer hardwoods. White and brown a piece of the action. Those that can col- tect the presence of another fungus of rots generally only grow in dead or onize quickly have an initial advantage, comparable strength. And although severely stressed trees. Unlike the rest but, as in any war, you have to be able most zone lines occur at the bound- of mycology, in which technical jar- to hold the land you’ve captured (not ary between two different white rot gon dominates, the terms white rot and just plant your flag and go) if you want fungi, they have also been documented brown rot are actually very descriptive lasting success. The beautiful colors and surrounding soft rot fungi and various of the end result of the log. Brown rot boundary shapes produced by some pigmenting fungi from the phylum As- fungi leave behind a crumbly, brown, of these wood-colonizing fungi are a comycota, which produce sac-shaped lignin-rich shell. White rot fungi, ca- by-product of the means by which to fruiting bodies rather than the stereo- pable of breaking down lignin, leave protect their property. typical mushroom shape. behind mushy, lightened wood in- One major artifact left behind by But pigmentation doesn’t happen stead. Other fungi, habituated to wood white rot fungi is a zone line: This just in zone lines. Some fungi, most no- White rot (left), and zone lines resulting from white rot antagonism, among other mechanisms (below).
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