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Ecology of Fungal Food Spoilage

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Fungi and Food Spoilage

Abstract

Food is not commonly regarded as an ecosystem, perhaps on the basis that it is not a “natural” system. Nevertheless an ecosystem it is and an important one, because food plants and the fungi that colonise their reproductive parts (seeds and fruit), have been co-evolving for millennia. The seed and nut caches of rodents have provided a niche for the development of storage fungi. Fallen fruit, as they go through the cycle of decay and desiccation, have provided substrates for a wide range of pathogenic and spoilage fungi also. Humans have aided and abetted the development of food spoilage fungi through the setting up of vast and varied food stores. It can be argued, indeed, that rapidly evolving organisms, such as haploid asexual fungi, are moving into niches created by man’s exploitation of certain types of plants as food. This chapter outlines the various parameters, including water activity, temperature and pH, that influence the growth of fungi in foods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Microbial Screening Technologies, Smithfield, NSW, Australia

    John I. Pitt

  2. CSIRO Agriculture and Food, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

    Ailsa D. Hocking

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Pitt, J.I., Hocking, A.D. (2022). Ecology of Fungal Food Spoilage. In: Fungi and Food Spoilage. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85640-3_2

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