BRACHBACH, Germany, July 22 (UPI) — Researchers in Germany say they’ve finally identified the fungal conditions that enable the formation of “hair ice.” Meanwhile, scientists in Switzerland detailed the physics of the phenomenon.
Together — in a new study published this week in the journal Biogeosciences — the scientists reveal eleven species of fungi responsible for encouraging the growth of hair ice. The research also illuminates the interactions between water and fungi that produce the strangely beautiful formations.
Hair ice is just what it sounds like, ice formations protruding from plants that resemble strands of hair — sometimes elaborate and curly, sometimes simple and flower-like.
“When we saw hair ice for the first time on a forest walk, we were surprised by its beauty,” Christian Matzler, a researcher at the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bern in Switzerland, explained in a press release. “Sparked by curiosity, we started investigating this phenomenon, at first using simple tests, such as letting hair ice melt in our hands until it melted completely.”
After collecting and studying samples of wood that supported hair ice formations in the deciduous forests of western Germany, researchers used microscopy tools to identify 11 species of hair ice-supporting fungi species.
“One of them, Exidiopsis effusa, colonised all of our hair-ice-producing wood, and in more than half of the samples, it was the only species present,” said Gisela Preuss, a biologist with Germany’s Julich Research Center.
Matzler, meanwhile, found that the fungi-driven hair ice is the result of a mechanism known as ice segregation, where cold water continually builds on the presence of ice. The pores at the wood’s surface trap liquid water between the wood and the ice. Suction causes the water to navigate to the outer layer of ice, where it freezes. The presence of fungi is the ingredient that encourages ice segregation to form hair-like strands, rather than a crust.
“The fungus plays the role of shaping the ice hairs and preventing them from recrystallization,” researchers wrote in their new study.
When scientists melted hair ice, they found the chemical signatures of fungal metabolism — proof that the fungi are growing along with the segregating ice structures. But what about the biological processes of fungi pushes the accumulating ice into these strange shapes?
“Further work is needed to clarify its role in hair-ice growth and to identify the recrystallisation inhibitor,” researchers admitted.
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