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.
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, named Amorphea. Amoebozoa includes many of the best-known amoeboid organisms, such as Chaos, Entamoeba, Pelomyxa and the genus Amoeba itself. Species of Amoebozoa may be either shelled (testate) or naked, and cells may possess flagella. Free-living species are common in both salt and freshwater as well as soil, moss and leaf litter. Some live as parasites or symbionts of other organisms, and some are known to cause disease in humans and other organisms.
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.
The family Acrasidae is a family of slime molds which belongs to the excavate group Percolozoa. The name element acrasio- comes from the Greek akrasia, meaning "acting against one's judgement". This group consists of cellular slime molds.
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.
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.
Conosa is a grouping of Amoebozoa. It is subdivided into three groups: Archamoeba, Variosea and Mycetozoa.
Myxogastria/Myxogastrea or Myxomycetes (ICN) is a class of slime molds that contains 5 orders, 14 families, 62 genera, and 888 species. They are colloquially known as the plasmodial or acellular slime moulds.
Tubifera is a genus of slime moulds from the subclass Myxogastria. The genus comprises 12 species.
Sappinia pedata is a free living amoeboid organism, first described by Pierre Augustin Dangeard in 1896. It belongs to the genus Sappinia within the Thecamoebida clade of Amoebozoa and is characterized by its unique monopodial locomotion and cell surface morphology. S. pedata has been found in various habitats worldwide, mostly on herbivore dung, decaying plant matter, and soil. The species has gained attention due to its potential medical relevance and has been the subject of most recent and emerging studies in Protistology and Eukaryotic Microbiology as a whole.
Ceratiomyxa is a genus of plasmodial slime mould within the Eumycetozoa, first described by Pier Antonio Micheli. They are widely distributed and commonly found on decaying wood.
Barbeyella minutissima is a slime mould species of the order Echinosteliales, and the only species of the genus Barbeyella. First described in 1914 from the Jura mountains, its habitat is restricted to montane spruce and spruce-fir forests of the Northern Hemisphere, where it has been recorded from Asia, Europe, and North America. It typically colonises slimy, algae-covered logs that have lost their bark and have been partially to completely covered by liverworts. The sporangia are roughly spherical, up to 0.2 mm in diameter, and supported by a thin stalk up to 0.7 mm tall. After the spores have developed, the walls of the sporangia split open into lobes. The species is one of the smallest members of the Myxogastria and is considered rare.
Cutosea is a small group of marine amoeboid protists proposed in 2016. It is a monotypic class of Amoebozoa containing the order Squamocutida. Cutosean organisms are characterized by a cell coat of microscales separated from the cell membrane. Four genera, Armaparvus, Idionectes, Sapocribrum and Squamamoeba, belong to this group, distributed in three families.
Luapeleamoeba hula is a species of acanthamoebid amoeba described in 2016, capable of producing protosteloid fruiting bodies that consist of a stalk with one spore. It was obtained from dead māmaki leaves from the Manuka Natural Area Reserve in Hawai'i. It has also been found in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Evosea is a diverse clade of amoeboid protists discovered through molecular analyses. Along with Tubulinea and Discosea, Evosea is one of the three major groups within Amoebozoa, an important clade of eukaryotic organisms. It contains unicellular organisms that display a wide variety of life cycles and cell shapes, including amoebae, flagellates and different kinds of slime molds.
Copromyxa protea is a cellular slime mold belonging to the supergroup Amoebozoa. The taxonomical history of C. protea starts as Guttulina protea and ultimately ends with becoming its own genus of protists. Its morphological features like tubular mitochondrial cristae help pinpoint its placement in its supergroup, as well as its pseudopodia. The life cycle of this cellular slime mold is outlined and expanded upon, delving into specific characteristics of each component in the stages. The specific environments where C. protea was gathered for experimental purposes is also detailed.
Protosteliopsis fimicola is an amoeba that forms a fruiting body that consists of a single spore with a non-cellular stalk. This species was thought to be closely related to the species P. mycophya, but it was found that it has a significant difference from this species because of having an irregular stalk and non-deciduous spores. Later it was found that Protosteliopsis is a part of group 6 in the genus Vannella based on 18s rRNA molecular phylogenetics.
