The Ecology of Fungal Food Spoilage

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 fruiting 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 substrate for a range of fungi. Humans have aided and abetted the development of food spoilage fungi through their vast and varied food stores. It can be argued, indeed, some rapidly evolving organisms, such as haploid asexual fungi, are moving into niches created by man’s exploitation of certain plants as food. Food by its very nature is expected to be nutritious: therefore, food is a rich habitat for microorganisms, in contrast with the great natural systems, soil, water and plants. Given the right physico-chemical conditions, only the most fastidious microorganisms are incapable of growth in foods, so that factors other than nutrients usually select for particular types of microbial populations. Perhaps the most important of these factors relates to the biological state of the food. Living foods, particularly fresh fruits, vegetables, and also grains and nuts before harvest, possess powerful defence mechanisms against microbial invasion. The study of the spoilage of such fresh foods is more properly a branch of plant pathology than food microbiology. The overriding factor determining spoilage of a fresh, living food is the ability of specific microorganisms to overcome defence mechanisms. Generally speaking, then, spoilage of fresh foods is limited to particular species. Such specific relationships between fresh food and fungus are discussed in Chapter 11 and under particular species. Other kinds of foods are moribund, dormant or nonliving, and the factors which govern spoilage are physical and chemical. There are eight principal factors: