Mycetozoa is a
polyphyletic
A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...
grouping of
slime mold
Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to a polyphyletic assemblage of unrelated eukaryotic organisms in the Stramenopiles, Rhizaria, Discoba, Amoebozoa and Holomycota clades. Most are near-microscopic; those in the Myxogastria ...
s.
It was originally thought to be a
monophyletic
In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria:
# the grouping contains its own most recent co ...
clade, but in 2010 it was discovered that
protostelia are a polyphyletic group within
Conosa.
Classification
It can be divided into
dictyostelid,
myxogastrid, and
protostelid groups.
The mycetozoan groups all fit into the
unikont supergroup
Amoebozoa
Amoebozoa is a major Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic group containing about 2,400 described species of Amoeba, amoeboid protists, often possessing blunt, fingerlike, Pseudopod#Morphology, lobose pseudopods and tubular mitochondrial cristae. In trad ...
, whereas most other slime molds fit into various
bikont groups (
fonticulids are
opisthokonts).
Utility in research
The
dictyostelids are used as examples of
cell communication and
differentiation, and may provide insights into how
multicellular organisms develop.
''
Physarum polycephalum'' are useful for studying
cytoplasmic streaming
Cytoplasmic streaming, also called protoplasmic streaming and cyclosis, is the flow of the cytoplasm inside the cell, driven by forces from the cytoskeleton. It is likely that its function is, at least in part, to speed up the transport of mole ...
. They have also been used to study the biochemical events that surround
mitosis
Mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle in eukaryote, eukaryotic cells in which replicated chromosomes are separated into two new Cell nucleus, nuclei. Cell division by mitosis is an equational division which gives rise to genetically identic ...
, since all of the nuclei in a medium-sized plasmodium divide in synchrony. It has been observed that they can find their way through mazes by spreading out and choosing the shortest path, an interesting example of information processing without a
nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...
. Myxomycete plasmodia have also been used to study the genetics of asexual cell fusion. The giant size of the plasmodial cells allows for easy evaluation of complete or partial cell fusion.
In 2006, researchers at the
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...
and the
University of Kobe reported that they had built a six-legged robot whose movement was remotely controlled by a ''Physarum'' slime mold.
The mold directed the
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...
into a dark corner most similar to its natural habitat.
Slime molds are sometimes studied in advanced mathematics courses. Slime mold aggregation is a natural process that can be approximated with
partial differential equations
In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives.
The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to how ...
.
Meiosis
Members of the Mycetozoa group are able to undergo
sexual reproduction
Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete ( haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell) with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote tha ...
either by
heterothallic or
homothallic mating.
An analysis of
meiosis
Meiosis () is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms that produces the gametes, the sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately result in four cells, each with only one c ...
-related genes in the ''
Dictyostelium discoideum'' genome revealed that 36 of the 44 genes tested were present in the genome.
One gene, ''
Spo11'', was absent in the Mycetozoa, raising questions about the assumed universal role of ''Spo11'' as an initiator of meiosis.
Fuligo septica
''Fuligo septica'' is a species of slime mold in the class Myxogastria, Myxomycetes. It is common name, commonly known as scrambled egg slime or flowers of tan because of its peculiar yellowish appearance; it is also known as dog vomit slime mol ...
''.
File:Brefeldia maxima plasmodium on wood.jpg, '' Brefeldia maxima'' on a tree stump in Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
.
File:08 04 morphological concepts, orders of Myxomycota (M. Piepenbring).png, Sporangia types in the protostelids and in the myxogastrid groups ( Echinosteliales, Liceales, Trichiales, Stemonitales, Physarales)
References
External links
Slime Molds
from abc.net.au
Hunting Slime Molds
from ''Smithsonian Magazine
''Smithsonian'' is a magazine covering science, history, art, popular culture and innovation. The first issue was published in 1970.
History
The history of ''Smithsonian'' began when Edward K. Thompson, the retired editor of ''Life'' magazine ...
''
*
dictyBase
is an online informatics resource for Dictyostelium, a cellular slime mould.
nomen.eumycetozoa.com
is an online nomenclatural information system of slime moulds (Myxomycetes, Dictyostelids and Protostelids) of the world.
Photo gallery
Slime Mold Photos
Life cycle of Reticularia lycoperdon at MushooMania.com.
Video footage of common slime moulds.
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Infraphyla