ALBERT

Description: To address the problem of indoor fungal growth, understanding the influence of moisture conditions on the fungal colonization process is crucial. This paper explores the influence of past moisture conditions on current processes. Specifically, it studies the growth and water sorption of conidia of Penicillium rubens formed at lower water activities (ranging from 0.86 to 0.99). For the first time, dynamic vapor sorption (DVS) is applied as a tool to quantify the water sorption of conidia as a function of the water activity at conidiation. Furthermore, growth experiments on agar and gypsum substrates are reported that relate hyphal growth rates of the mycelium from pretreated conidia to the water activity at conidiation. No effect of the conidiation water activity on mycelial growth rates is found on either gypsum or agar. It is found, however, that conidia formed at lower activities have a higher dry weight and attract more water from humid air. It is shown that both phenomena can be explained by conidia from lower activities carrying higher amounts of compatible solutes, glycerol in particular. The enhanced sorption observed in this study might constitute a mechanism through which solute reserves contribute to survival during the early steps of fungal colonization. The sorption behavior of conidia of Penicillium rubens that were formed under harsh moisture conditions was studied using a dynamic vapor sorption apparatus. It is found that conidia formed at low water activity will attract many times their own volume in water from humid air. From analysis of the sorption isotherms, it is deduced that this enhanced sorption behavior must be caused by large amounts of intra- and extracellular glycerol that was stored during sporulation.