Dear Attila,

I think it will be helpful to define your question a little bit. Do you mean rot types (as white and brown), or classes of decay, or something else? This can help to get a useful answer. For some approaches in the field of wood decay you can see a paper in attachment. And it may be helpful to address Dmitry Schigel https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dmitry_Schigel for wood-decay study approaches.

Best wishes,

Elena

 Dear Elena! Thank you for the answer! My question refers to the identification the species of the decayed wood (as substrate of wood-inhabiting fungi). In many cases, it is a valuable information. Identification of a barkless, distorted, rotten tree trunk is a quite difficult problem.

Dear Attila,

You can also find the answer in papers written by Piret Lohmus. She has the similar task in lichenology (decaying wood as a substrate for lichens) and uses a knife to identify the decay class.

Best wishes,

Andrei.

Attila,

I did not found any excellent source that describe the destruction of wood by fungi except book that has bee written by Schwarze as well as Schmidt, until now.

Good Luck

Ehsan

http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783642631337

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783540321385

En la siguiente página puede encontrar bastante información:

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/research/units/4723.php

This is the best for the beginner

http://www.amazon.com/Microscopic-Wood-Anatomy-Fritz-Schweingruber/dp/B0072IQYDU/ref=sr_1_51?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460364857&sr=1-51&keywords=schweingruber

Dear Elena, Andrei, Ehsan, Alberto and Gianmichele!

Thank You all the useful help!

Attila