Observations concerning these changes due to brown-rot, white-rot and soft-rot degradation are the first ones reported for MIR of degraded wood (Takahashi and Nishimoto 1967).
Infrared imaging microscopy allowed for the localisation of incipient brown-rot degradation processes in outer cell wall regions (middle lamellae, primary or outer secondary walls).
MVA was also well applicable to analyse IR microscopy images (Fackler et al. 2010, 2011) and analysis of NIR spectra with PCA allowed for conclusions on brown-rot degradation that had not been a priori hypothesised (Fackler and Schwanninger 2010).
Kleist and Schmitt (2001) studied brown-rot degradation of Sapelli wood and found that at high moisture content, C. puteana caused a soft-rot type of decay with rhomboidal cavities in secondary cell wall, but no differences in lignin content of adjacent cell wall regions could be evidenced by UV microscopy.
This research has important implications for the mechanisms of brown rot fungal degradation in wood because it eliminates a pathway that had previously been proposed as a mechanism explaining free radical generation in the oxidative depolymerization of cellulose in the cell wall.
The pCA is mostly presented as a free phenolic compound in the entire lignin complex, favored by MnP through α-β cleavage reactions (white rot fungi degradation style) [ 13, 15, 50].
Among white-rot fungi, the degradation of diuron is generally attributed to the action of extracellular enzymes, the lignin-modifying enzymes typically produced by these fungi [ 10– 13].
Nuclear magnetic resonance, IR and UV spectroscopy provide valuable and less invasive or even non-destructive tools to study wood chemistry, physics and molecular structure in various stages of softwood and hardwood degradation by white-rot, brown-rot and soft-rot fungi.
Brown-rot fungi have different mechanisms for the wood degradation with white-rot fungi, which are rapidly depolymerize the cellulose and hemicellulose in wood with modified lignin in the brown residue (Goodell et al. 1997; Hyde and Wood 1997).
This research aims to identify the selective lignin-degrading white-rot fungus with high lignin degradation and low cellulose loss.
Degradation by white rot fungi has the potential to increase digestibility of wheat straw and thus improve its value as animal feed.
