488: Social Slimes Synchronize Sorties

This episode: Slime mold amoebas Fonticula alba have interesting
and unique foraging and reproductive behaviors!


Download Episode (7.3 MB, 10.6 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Cajanus cajan Panzee virus


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Takeaways


How did life develop from single-celled organisms acting
independently into the complex, multicellular organisms we see
and are today? Although it is difficult to look back through time
to study how ancient organisms may have developed along this
path, it is possible to investigate modern organisms that occupy
a zone in between single-celled and multicellular, to see if we
can get some hints to our own development, and also learn about
some interesting microbes along the way!

This study into the social amoeba, or slime mold, Fonticula alba,
finds that the individual amoebal cells in a population join
together into collectives and break apart into individuals at
different stages of their complex life cycle, depending on the
status of the bacteria around them that they forage as prey. The
investigators tease out the various pathways taken by these
amoebas.


 


Journal Paper:


Toret C, Picco A, Boiero-Sanders M, Michelot A, Kaksonen M. 2022.
The cellular slime mold Fonticula alba forms a dynamic,
multicellular collective while feeding on bacteria. Curr Biol
32:1961-1973.e4.


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