Fungal Biodeterioration

Dear Colleagues,

Being enormously versatile, ubiquitous and metabolically diverse organisms, fungi are able to grow on a vast number of valuable cultural heritage artifacts and building materials, contributing to the development of drastic biodeterioration phenomena. Due to their physical and chemical actions, they are regarded as one of the most important groups of microorganisms contributing to the deterioration of cultural heritage artifacts, monuments and buildings. During recent years, -omics technologies have revolutionized the way we understand the fungal diversity on these supports, while also helping to understand some of their metabolic functions and their deteriorative by-products. On the other hand, these techniques have also highlighted that many cultural heritage and building materials are inhabited by various still-unknown fungal species, the biodeteriorative properties of which remain unidentified. Moreover, multiple specific fungal biodeterioration mechanisms have recently started to be deeply characterized. Understanding how the diversity of these microorganisms is shaped and how their action affects cultural heritage and building materials worldwide is imperative for the development of control measures and for the preservation of these treasures for future generations.

This Special Issue will focus specifically on biodeteriorating fungi, and aims to publish outstanding cutting-edge studies shedding light on the fungal diversity and biodeterioration mechanisms affecting cultural heritage and building materials.

Dr. António Manuel Santos Carriço Portugal
Dr. João Trovão 
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Fungi is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.