Talk:Slime mould

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I seem to remember something about slime molds fitting into both the plant and animal categories--or sometimes one and sometimes the other? Anyone familiar with this and know how to explain it? (Or has time done another number on my database?)  ;-) --KQ

Under the old two-kingdom system, slime molds were considered both a class of fungi (Myxomycota), which went among the plants, and an order of amoebae (Myxozoa), which went among the animals. There's a brief note about the overlap between the two kingdoms on Protista but I haven't gone into any details of historical taxonomy because the modern stuff is already plenty to keep up with. As always, help is encouraged. :) --JG

This is fuzzy memory as well, but I Seem To Recall that some Slime Molds are able to somehow chemically herd or or otherwise effect the normal life-cycle of some bacteria (or whatever) type micro-thingies that they eat. I'll have to see if I can find where I read that... Anyway, nice to see that the less prominent lifeforms are not forgotten (ah! that gives me an idea for a minor edit.) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 10:31 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

To KQ, The reason that slime moulds have historically fitted into both classifications is because they produce their own cellulose (meaning that it is a plant) but contrastingly it can sometimes have the appearance of and move like an animal. --FW

Contents 1 question 2 gender? 3 Unequal interwiki's 4 taste? 5 2 cm/Minute ? 6 Incorrect Picture 7 Question 8 Question 9 Mould vs Mold

[edit] question

[edit] gender?

I seem to remember a high school bio teacher once telling me that slime molds have close to a dozen genders? is that right?

A: even worse, according to [[1]]: "in fact it’s a slime mold (genus Physarum), an otherworldly creature with 29 variants of sex-controlling genes, dispersed among eight different types of sex cells. To ensure genetic diversity, each slime mold sex cell can only fuse with a sex cell that has completely different variants of genes than its own. If you calculate all the possible combinations of genes and sex cells, you will find that Physarum have more than 500 different sexes." (ZooGoer 33(2) 2004. Copyright 2004 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.)

[edit] Unequal interwiki's

Just a note, because it should be changed later when more articles have been written. The interwiki's on this article are not not exactly congruent. The German (de:Schleimpilze) and Danish (da:Slimdyr) are about a lower taxon (Myxomycota) as compared to the the rest (Mycetozoa). Probably the order Myxogastria is equal to Myxomycota.

Secondly, there is much confusion about the names of the orders. I found this site: http://www.thallobionta.szm.sk/fungilich/myxo.htm quite clear, but it is in Slovak (so probably not readable for many native english speakers). At least the knowledge taxonomy of the Slime mould is not as clear as the article suggests. I found that most authors agree on putting it in the Protista kingdom, but the German wikipedia expresses much more doubt.

Taka 2 July 2005 17:50 (UTC)

The classification of slime moulds does vary a bit. However, most of the differences you're looking at involve older systems, which don't accurately reflect the modern understanding of the group. For instance, the German wikipedia is about essentially the same organisms as this page. It mentions three phyla:

• Myxomycota, plasmodial slime moulds. In this case this is our Myxogastria, but note Myxomycota can also be used as a synonym for Mycetozoa.
• Acrasiomycota, cellular slime moulds. It's now recognized that these include two separate groups, the dictyostelids and acrasids.
• Plasmodiophoromycota, plasmodiophorids. These aren't considered slime moulds in newer systems, but are mentioned on this page.

I don't think there's that much doubt about the classification. With the move to phylogenetic kingdoms, they are definitely not classified as fungi, and Amoebozoa has broad though not universal support. The main variations are ranks (e.g. Mycetozoa may be a subkingdom) and botanical vs. zoological names (e.g. Echinosteliida may be given as Echinosteliales), but I think the major subgroups given are now essentially stable. Josh

Thanks for the clarifications.

• Does this (english) article reflect the latest views and names?
• Is there a reference (best to be found on internet) that you consider to be a reflecting the latest views.
• what is with the Hydromyxomycetes (mentioned here)?

Taka 2 July 2005 18:19 (UTC)

I think the English article does, with the above caveats. If you're looking for particular genera, a good reference would be Systema Naturae 2000, which follows Cavalier-Smith. I didn't follow his ranks because his subphylum Conosa is not well-supported. The breakdown here is a concensus supported by cladistic analyses, but the ranks still seem to be variable, and I think this version comes from The Illustrated Handbook of Protozoa (1985).

I've never seen the Hydromyxomycetes in a slime mould classification before, old or new. I found a page that links them to the vampyrellids, which are not usually considered slime moulds. Several others mention Labyrinthula, though, and I imagine the name is mostly used to refer to the Labyrinthulomycetes. Proteomyxids were also mentioned, but this seems to be based on an older version of that name, too. Josh

[edit] taste?

how do they taste?

My, that's a yummy slime mold!

A tad slimy and slightly mouldy.

Please don't taste one. Many fungi are deadly poison. The bright colors might be a warning.Steve Dufour 19:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, at least a couple of species have been reported as edible. However, Myxomycota (under any name) is a pretty broad category, and there's certainly a chance that isn't universally the case. Serpent's Choice 11:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't plan on eating any. :-) Steve Dufour 05:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2 cm/Minute ?

Which Slime mould is capable of this impressive speed ? I'd like to know as it seems very fast for a slime mold ! Citation please !

[edit] Incorrect Picture

The image at the bottom right of the page is not a slime mold, but is Tremella mesenterica, a fungus. I don’t know how to change or delete the image. Could someone please change it.

Taken care of, although someone more Wikicapable might want to do somethign about the image/text alignment issues. Serpent's Choice 11:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Anyone know if it would be typical for a Slime mould under dry conditions, to release a spore cloud if sprayed with water?--Isotope23 00:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe so, yes. --Scix 04:51, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

some 20 years ago I saw an black and white video clip of a slime mould congregating into an organism and walking off - it was amazing - should there be a video clip in Wikipedia????

lovely idea. Do we just search one up on YouTube? --Scix 04:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mould vs Mold

I am curious whether there is a policy behind "mould" being listed as the normative spelling and "mold" as the American variant? Do we generally go for BritSpell in article names, or the most common spelling in print, or is it just sort of the prerogative of whomever starts the article? I honestly have no preferrence on the matter, it just struck me that I didn't KNOW how to choose one over the other, as an editor, I mean. --Scix 04:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

This is explained at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National_varieties_of_English.

The basic principle is:

• If the topic is uniquely relevant to a particular English-speaking country (e.g. New York, Sydney Opera House, Queen Elizabeth II), we use the variety of English used in that country.
• Otherwise, we stick with whatever variety of English the article happens to be written in.

This does lead to the slightly odd situation where you should use British spellings when editing this article, but American spellings when editing mold. But any other approach would alienate a large number of editors who felt that their variety of English was being marginalised, so this is how we do it. ^^

— Haeleth Talk 11:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Gotcha. Very clear, thanks. --Scix 05:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)