Mycofiltration is the process of using mushroom mycelium mats as biological filters. The term was coined by Paul Stamets. Basidiocarps (mushrooms) of the fungus Leucocoprinus sp. ... Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus consisting of a mass of branching threadlike hyphae that exists below the ground or within another substrate. ... Paul Stamets (born July 17, 1955) is a mycologist and an occasional mushroom aficionado. ...

Stamets originally came up with the technique to control E. coli in the water outflow from his property. After planting a mushroom bed in the gulch where the water was leaving, within a year the coliform count had decreased to nearly undetectable levels. He discovered that the mushroom produced crystalline entities advancing in front of the growing mycelium, disintegrating when they encountered E. coli. As they did so, a chemical signal was sent back to the mycelium that, in turn, generated what appeared to be a customized macro-crystal which attracted the motile bacteria by the thousands, summarily stunning them. The advancing mycelium then consumed the E. coli, effectively eliminating them from the environment. Binomial name Escherichia coli T. Escherich, 1885 Escherichia coli (usually abbreviated to E. coli) is one of the main species of bacteria that live in the lower intestines of warm-blooded animals (including birds and mammals) and are necessary for the proper digestion of food. ...

Another mushroom, Polyporus umbellata, has been demonstrated to completely inhibit the parasite that causes malaria. A parasite is an organism that lives in or on the living tissue of a host organism at the expense of that host. ... Red blood cell infected with Malaria (Italian: bad air; formerly called ague or marsh fever in English) is an infectious disease which in humans causes about 350-500 million infections and approximately 1. ...

One industrial application of mycofiltration has been to prevent erosion due to water runoff. Its primary application has been on abandoned logging roads. The approach here has been to place bark and wood chips onto logging roads, and inoculate this wood debris with mycelia of native fungal species. As the wood chips decompose, the mycelial networks develop and they act as filters to prevent silt-flow. In the process, they also renew topsoils, spurring the growth of native flora and fauna. Look up Erosion on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA. Erosion is the displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock, and so forth) by the agents of wind, water, ice, movement in response to gravity, or living organisms (in the case... Run-off, composed of a mixture of water and soil along with any other organic or inorganic substances that may exist in the land, is the product of precipitation, snowmelt, over-irrigation, or other water coming in contact with the earth and carrying matter to streams, rivers, lakes, and other... Loggers on break, c. ... Silt refers to soil or rock particles of a certain very small size range (see grain size). ...

Mycoremediation is a similar process, using mushrooms to remove contaminants from polluted environments. The Lachine Canal, in Montreal, is badly polluted Pollution is the release of harmful environmental contaminants, or the substances so released. ...

Reference

• Mycofiltration: A Novel Approach for the Bio-Transformation of Abandoned Logging Roads