Physarum polycephalum

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Physarum polycephalum
Physarum polycephalum, Plasmodium (yellow)

Physarum polycephalum , Plasmodium (yellow)

Systematics
without rank: Amoebozoa
without rank: Myxogastria
Order : Physarida
Family : Physaridae
Genre : Physarum
Type : Physarum polycephalum
Scientific name
Physarum polycephalum
Pig.

Physarum polycephalum (Greek πολύς polys 'much, several', κεφαλή kephalē 'head') is a slime mold species from the order of the Physarida and can therefore be assigned to the Myxogastria (also myxomycetes or real slime molds). The multinucleated phaneroplasmodium formedby a single cell can be seenwith the naked eye due to its size (up to several square meters). This species is well described because it iswidely usedas a model organism in laboratories for study purposes.

In reference to the extraterrestrial, human-devouring substance from the science fiction film Blob - Horror Without a Name , it is also jokingly called "the Blob".

features

The yellow to gray (rarely white), irregularly lenticular to disk-shaped or rolled up to convoluted-confluent sporocarps are 1 to 1.5 millimeters wide, 1.5 to 2 millimeters high, stalked and heaped together. The shell of the sporocarp, the peridia , is membranous, brittle, white or pale yellow and covered with yellow to white calcareous nodules. The yellow, translucent stem is long, slender, flexible and twisted into one another, occasionally flattened and broadened at the base. The fine, dense scalp is physaroid, i.e. it forms a network in which thickened, irregularly shaped, yellow to white, calcareous nodes are connected by slender, translucent and lime-free threads.

The roughened to finely prickly spores , measuring 8 to 11 micrometers in diameter, are black-brown in mass, and individually purple in transmitted light .

distribution

Physarum polycephalum colonizes rotting wood and the fruiting bodies of fleshy mushrooms . Occasionally, fruit bodies are also formed on living plants .

use

Physarum polycephalum is often used in biology as a model organism for studying cell motility , cell growth and cell differentiation . The ease of cultivation and the size of the cell are advantageous for handling.

In 2000 it was proven that Physarum polycephalum can find the shortest path between two points in a maze , at the beginning of 2006 the species was used at the Japanese University of Kobe in a technical application for the central control of a slime mold robot. In 2010 it was proven that the network-forming ability of Physarum polycephalum shows a very good balance between redundancy and efficiency. For this purpose, the Japanese railway network around Tokyo was clearly compared with a network formed by Physarum polycephalum in the laboratory .

The largest known specimen of the species is also the largest single cell in the world: In 1987, on the occasion of Karl-Ernst Wohlfarth-Bottermann's retirement, Bonn researchers bred a 5.54 square meter W-shaped specimen.

In October 2019, a separate room was set up for the single-cell organism in the Parc zoologique de Paris , where it is presented as a “fascinating creature with unimagined possibilities”. It has also been suggested that the species was nicknamed Blob , based on the horror film Blob , although it is completely harmless. The mating behavior of the living being was also discussed.

Web links

Commons : Physarum polycephalum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

proof

  1. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Richter: Alter Schleimer. In: ZEIT – Knowledge. 01/2007, online.
  2. ^ A b c Henry Stempen, Steven L. Stevenson: Myxomycetes. A Handbook of Slime Molds . Timber Press, 1994, ISBN 0-88192-439-3 , pp. 148-149 .
  3. ^ Henry Stempen, Steven L. Stevenson: Myxomycetes. A Handbook of Slime Molds . Timber Press, 1994, ISBN 0-88192-439-3 , pp. 19-21 .
  4. ↑ Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, Ágota Tóth: Intelligence: Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism. In: Nature. Volume 407, September 2000, p. 470, online.
  5. ↑ S. Tsuda, K.-P. Zauner, Y.-P. Gunji: Robot Control with Biological Cells. In: Proceedings of Sixth International Workshop on Information Processing in Cells and Tissues. St. William's College, York 2005, pp. 202-216.
  6. ↑ Atsushi Tero, Seiji Takagi, Tetsu Saigusa, Kentaro Ito, Dan P. Bebber, Mark D. Fricker, Kenji Yumiki, Ryo Kobayashi, Toshiyuki Nakagaki: Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design. In: Science. 327: 5964, pp. 439-441, last accessed January 24, 2010.
  7. ↑ David Differdange: Aliens from the Petri Dish. In: tagesschau.de . October 22, 2019, accessed October 28, 2019.