An international network of/for intelligent organisms

P. Polycephelum responding to predation

I recently had a petri dish of P. Polycephelum become contaminated with an unidentified white mold. When I discovered the mold in the morning I also found sclerotic bodies forming right next to each of the two areas of contamination. It seems, at first glance, that the slime mold is responding to predation by fruiting. I have never seen any references to this sort of behavior in this species before. I am about to start a couple of experiments to see whether this is an actual response that I am witnessing or just a coincidence. While that's happening though, has anyone here seen this sort of behavior before?

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Theresa on January 6, 2013 at 11:02

hi jeremiah, i have observed this as well. i had several times contamination by some mold and p.p. forming fruiting bodies soon after. i remember once i had p.p. using the mold to climb up to the lid of the petri dish trying to get away from the ground. but i never observed this closely or did repetitive experiments... but would be interesting to see your results...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bruce kamolnick on February 7, 2013 at 0:15

I believe this is known as Black Bread Mold, or Rhizopus Stolonifer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bread_mold

We have been struggling with this for months, using more and more stringent sterilization techniques, and still coming up with this mold within several days of a clean P.P. growth from sclerotium.

Our latest theory (posited by Carolina) is that Agar is the source: multiple re-heatings and exposures of the agar may infect it, and if it is used as a base for growth, than you have an infected base, and le voila!