Can Cultures Fuse?

[Craig Dekker]

I am growing a slime mold in a petri dish from Carolina.com, and the instructions were to put two papers of sclierotium in a petri dish. They have been growing for a couple of days separately, and are on course to meet soon. Can they fuse and become one culture?

[François-Joseph Deminiere]

Hi Craig !

Yes sir! They probably will.

See video (in french I'm afraid but youtube translate is quite good) : (clever without a brain) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47qiwqKRef0 I don't know if there is equivalent in English.

They have some kind of a personality :

Aggressive : one will kill and reuse protoplasm

Friendly : Fuse and learn from each other (same kind of DNA)

Frigtened : one of them will run away.

could you take a time lapse video of encounter ?

Best regards

François-Joseph.

[Craig Dekker]

Hi,

Thank you for clarifying. I tried taking a time-lapse video, but the light I needed to record was to bright for the slime mold to break out of the sclierotium and keep growing. I have resorted to taking a picture every few hours and misting it with water for it to survive in the enclosure that I built in my garage. 

Thanks,

Craig

[ian]

I use flash every 5 mins for TL - it doesn't seem to bother them. Plasmodia of the same strain will always fuse when they meet.