Little is known about the processes occurring during the degradation of wood by obligately anaerobic fungi. When woods from a range of hardwood species were incubated for 11 days with a strain of the Chytrid Neocallimastix frontalis many of the woods were measurably fermented; Fagus sylvatica (23%) was the most highly degraded. Microscopic examination of Populus tremuloides wood after incubation with a Neocallimastix frontalis showed that degradation proceeded in a stepwise manner and progressed from cell to cell. Secondary cell walls were degraded but middle lamella structures remained intact with fruiting bodies developing mainly on the outer surface of the substrate but also within vessels. Fungal rhizoids crossed intercellular boundaries via pits in cell walls. Attempts to improve the rate and extent of Populus tremuloides degradation by the use of shake cultures rather than static cultures or by forming syntrophic associations between the fungus and a methanogenic bacterium were unsuccessful.

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