The Percolozoa are a group of colourless, non-photosynthetic Excavata, including many that can transform between amoeboid, flagellate, and cyst stages.
Nucleariida is a group of amoebae with filose pseudopods, known mostly from soils and freshwater. They are distinguished from the superficially similar vampyrellids mainly by having mitochondria with discoid cristae, in the absence of superficial granules, and in the way they consume food.
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 microscopic; those in the Myxogastria form larger plasmodial slime molds visible to the naked eye. The slime mold life cycle includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic multicellular or multinucleate fruiting bodies that may be formed through aggregation or fusion; aggregation is driven by chemical signals called acrasins. Slime molds contribute to the decomposition of dead vegetation; some are parasitic.
Excavata is an extensive and diverse but paraphyletic group of unicellular Eukaryota. The group was first suggested by Simpson and Patterson in 1999 and the name latinized and assigned a rank by Thomas Cavalier-Smith in 2002. It contains a variety of free-living and symbiotic protists, and includes some important parasites of humans such as Giardia and Trichomonas. Excavates were formerly considered to be included in the now obsolete Protista kingdom. They were distinguished from other lineages based on electron-microscopic information about how the cells are arranged. They are considered to be a basal flagellate lineage.
The dictyostelids or cellular slime molds are a group of slime molds or social amoebae.
Mycetozoa is a polyphyletic grouping of slime molds. It was originally thought to be a monophyletic clade, but recently it was discovered that protostelia are a polyphyletic group within Conosa.
Dictyostelium is a genus of single- and multi-celled eukaryotic, phagotrophic bacterivores. Though they are Protista and in no way fungal, they traditionally are known as "slime molds". They are present in most terrestrial ecosystems as a normal and often abundant component of the soil microflora, and play an important role in the maintenance of balanced bacterial populations in soils.
Amoebozoa is a major taxonomic group containing about 2,400 described species of amoeboid protists, often possessing blunt, fingerlike, lobose pseudopods and tubular mitochondrial cristae. In traditional classification schemes, Amoebozoa is usually ranked as a phylum within either the kingdom Protista or the kingdom Protozoa. In the classification favored by the International Society of Protistologists, it is retained as an unranked "supergroup" within Eukaryota. Molecular genetic analysis supports Amoebozoa as a monophyletic clade. Modern studies of eukaryotic phylogenetic trees identify it as the sister group to Opisthokonta, another major clade which contains both fungi and animals as well as several other clades comprising some 300 species of unicellular eukaryotes. Amoebozoa and Opisthokonta are sometimes grouped together in a high-level taxon, variously named Unikonta, Amorphea or Opimoda.
Naegleria is a free living amoebae protist genus consisting of 47 described species often found in warm aquatic environments as well as soil habitats worldwide. It has three life cycle forms: the amoeboid stage, the cyst stage, and the flagellated stage, and has been routinely studied for its ease in change from amoeboid to flagellated stages. The Naegleria genera became famous when Naegleria fowleri, a human pathogenic strain and the causative agent of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), was discovered in 1965. Most species in the genus, however, are nonpathogenic, meaning they do not cause disease.
Lobosa is a taxonomic group of amoebae in the phylum Amoebozoa. Most lobosans possess broad, bluntly rounded pseudopods, although one genus in the group, the recently discovered Sapocribrum, has slender and threadlike (filose) pseudopodia. In current classification schemes, Lobosa is a subphylum, composed mainly of amoebae that have lobose pseudopods but lack cilia or flagella.
Physarum polycephalum, an acellular slime mold or myxomycete popularly known as "the blob", is a protist with diverse cellular forms and broad geographic distribution. The “acellular” moniker derives from the plasmodial stage of the life cycle: the plasmodium is a bright yellow macroscopic multinucleate coenocyte shaped in a network of interlaced tubes. This stage of the life cycle, along with its preference for damp shady habitats, likely contributed to the original mischaracterization of the organism as a fungus. P. polycephalum is used as a model organism for research into motility, cellular differentiation, chemotaxis, cellular compatibility, and the cell cycle.
Eumycetozoa, or true slime molds, is a diverse group of protists that behave as slime molds and develop fruiting bodies, either as sorocarps or as sporocarps. It is a monophyletic group or clade within the phylum Amoebozoa that contains the myxogastrids, dictyostelids and protosporangiids.
A grex starts as a crowd of single-celled amoebae of the groups Acrasiomycota or Dictyosteliida; grex is the Latin word for flock. The cells flock together, forming a mass that behaves as an organised, slug-like unit. Before they get stimulated to crowd together to form a grex, the amoebae simply wander as independent cells grazing on bacteria and other suitable food items. They continue in that way of life as long as conditions are favourable. When the amoebae are stressed, typically by a shortage of food, they form a grex.
Dictyostelium discoideum is a species of soil-dwelling amoeba belonging to the phylum Amoebozoa, infraphylum Mycetozoa. Commonly referred to as slime mold, D. discoideum is a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of unicellular amoebae into a multicellular slug and then into a fruiting body within its lifetime. Its unique asexual life cycle consists of four stages: vegetative, aggregation, migration, and culmination. The life cycle of D. discoideum is relatively short, which allows for timely viewing of all stages. The cells involved in the life cycle undergo movement, chemical signaling, and development, which are applicable to human cancer research. The simplicity of its life cycle makes D. discoideum a valuable model organism to study genetic, cellular, and biochemical processes in other organisms.
Naegleria gruberi is a species of Naegleria. It is famous for its ability to change from an amoeba, which lacks a cytoplasmic microtubule cytoskeleton, to a flagellate, which has an elaborate microtubule cytoskeleton, including flagella. This "transformation" includes de novo synthesis of basal bodies.
Protosteliomycetes/Protosteliales (ICBN) or Protostelea/Protostelia/Protosteliida (ICZN) is a grouping of slime molds from the phylum Mycetozoa. The name can vary depending upon the taxon used. Other names include Protostelea, Protostelia, and Protostelida. When not implying a specific level of classification, the term protostelid or protosteloid amoeba is sometimes used.
Amoeboid movement is the most typical mode of locomotion in adherent eukaryotic cells. It is a crawling-like type of movement accomplished by protrusion of cytoplasm of the cell involving the formation of pseudopodia ("false-feet") and posterior uropods. One or more pseudopodia may be produced at a time depending on the organism, but all amoeboid movement is characterized by the movement of organisms with an amorphous form that possess no set motility structures.
Fonticula is a genus of cellular slime mold which forms a fruiting body in a volcano shape. As long ago as 1979 it has been known to not have a close relationship with either the Dictyosteliida or the Acrasidae, the two well-established groups of cellular slime molds. In 1979, Fonticula was made a new genus of its own due to the unique characteristics of its fruiting body, with only one species: Fonticula alba.
An amoeba, often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudopods. Amoebae do not form a single taxonomic group; instead, they are found in every major lineage of eukaryotic organisms. Amoeboid cells occur not only among the protozoa, but also in fungi, algae, and animals.
Syssomonas is a monotypic genus of unicellular flagellated protists containing the species Syssomonas multiformis. It is a member of Pluriformea inside the lineage of Holozoa, a clade containing animals and their closest protistan relatives. It lives in freshwater habitats. It has a complex life cycle that includes unicellular amoeboid and flagellated phases, as well as multicellular aggregates, depending on the growth medium and nutritional state.
