Effect of light on slime mold

[Bill Rueger]

I am interested in knowing why slime molds are adverse to light.  What is the mechanism that causes light to make them change into spores?  What might be the evolutionary purpose?  If you can direct me to any articles about this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

Bill

[Kenneth Ramos]

Why are they adverse to light?   Good question, I am not sure of that myself but reading your post had me looking at positive and negative phototaxis and how it plays out in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms.  I did not quite find what I was hoping for, which was an answer to your question but it got me to thinking about the properties of light, sunlight in particular and since we ourselves have some adverse reactions to light due to ultraviolet radiation, I thought one might could begin there with some simple experiments subjecting slime molds/plasmodia, to light consisting of varying properties or intensities of UV.  This could be accomplished, maybe, by using various UV filters obtained from a photographic supply and by taking note of how much UV is filtered out by each one.  Then using these filters to pass sunlight or other various light sources directly on to the plasmodia and taking note of its reactions to each exposure. Now this may or may not provide you with a good answer or what you are looking for but it could be a start.  As for publications and papers written on the subject, surely there are some but most web sites request a monetary sum for access to such information.