We report the case of an outdoor deteriorated wooden sculpture of Madonna, completely blackened in the face, and thus suspected of fungal attack. A multi-disciplinary approach, including microbiological analysis, molecular biology, and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, was applied to understand the real nature of the observed alteration. FT-IR showed that the blackening was due to the application of a natural terpene resin subjected to alteration over time. The microbiological assay allowed to isolate a particular black fungus that has been recovered in the vegetative phase, growing as the only species adapted to the examined substrate. Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) analysis of the ITS (internal transcribed spacer) region sequence identified the fungus (LS31012019) as Zalaria obscura, a black yeast belonging to the new genus Zalaria, family Dothideales. Overall, this study evidenced the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to understand the real causes of observed deterioration of artworks. More interestingly, the recovery of a strain identified as Z. obscura from this type of substrate is never reported in the literature and this finding could offer the possibility to investigate the role of this microorganism in the deterioration process of cultural heritage.

中文翻译：

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从恶化的木制艺术品中分离和分子鉴定属于新种 Zalaria obscura 的菌株

我们报告了一个室外变质的麦当娜木雕，面部完全变黑，因此怀疑受到真菌侵袭。应用包括微生物分析、分子生物学和傅里叶变换红外 (FT-IR) 光谱在内的多学科方法来了解观察到的变化的真实性质。FT-IR 表明变黑是由于使用了随着时间推移而发生变化的天然萜烯树脂。微生物测定允许分离已在营养阶段恢复的特定黑木耳，其生长为适应所检查底物的唯一物种。ITS（内部转录间隔区）区域序列的基本局部比对搜索工具 (BLAST) 分析将真菌 (LS31012019) 鉴定为 Zalaria obscura，一种黑酵母，属于新属 Zalaria，Dothideales 家族。总的来说，这项研究证明了采用多学科方法来了解观察到的艺术品退化的真正原因的重要性。更有趣的是，文献中从未报道过从此类基质中回收被鉴定为 Z. obscura 的菌株，这一发现可能为研究这种微生物在文化遗产退化过程中的作用提供了可能性。