Week 1: What is a slime mold?
Puja K -
Great question! A slime mold is definitely one of nature’s more weirder organisms. They are not an actual taxonomic group, instead the slime mold is a name given to single-celled organisms that are found in Amoebozoa, Holomycota, Myxogastria, etc. clades. Slime molds are protists that are all very loosely related to each other. The specific clade we are interested in for this project is Physarum polycephalum. They are often found in damp habitats such as old wood, fallen leaves, and more.
An important fact about the slime mold is that they undergo a life cycle that is pretty typical of a protist. Spores are come through sexual fusion to make a plasmodium which is the typical 2n organism that you’re probably thinking of. The plasmodium then slowly develops into a sporangium which eventually makes the spores which starts the whole cycle again. For my project, I will mainly be dealing with the plasmodium part of the life cycle.
Now for the good part. Slime mold intelligence. Slime molds have consistently wowed scientists due to their almost animal-like intelligence. Slime molds have an ability to “think” and have been shown to be able to solve simple mazes and respond to stimuli. This may not seem like much, but it is truly a miracle to see a non-animal organism that doesn’t even have a brain to be able to demonstrate such complex actions. These single-celled organisms have somehow managed to find a way to solve a maze! That’s something that’s hard for even rats and mice to do let alone a protist.
These amazing organisms are fascinating to learn about. Throughout these following weeks, I hope I can show you all how intelligent these creatures truly are through a lot of experimentation and hopefully a few good results. Come back next week to see me gather my materials for the upcoming months. Bye!
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