When fungi cause damage to useful materials it is known as biodeterioration . The discovery of penicillin produced by a mould was one of the most crucial medical developments of the 20th Century. Some of the most important organisms used in biotechnology are fungi with applications ranging from the production of industrial enzymes to clean-up of toxic wastes. Species of fungi are disappearing due to loss of habitat faster than mycologists can study them. More details from the Friends of the Earth .
Mushrooms are quite capable of forcing their way up through asphalt and lifting paving stones.
How they do it is explained on this New Scientist Web Page . People have been using fungi for purposes other than food for thousands of years. Tinder material prepared from the bracket fungus, Fomes fomentarius , and pieces of the polypore, Piptoporus betulinus , were found with the frozen remains of a Neolithic man discovered in an alpine glacier in 1991. Ants first started to cultivate fungi in underground gardens around 50 million years ago. Today, leafcutter ants remove more of the vegetation in a tropical American rainforest than any other group of animals, including mammals.