The life cycle of a slime mould

THE LIFE CYCLE of a slime mould isn’t as straightforward as you’d expect. A single spore produced by a fruiting body germinates and becomes an amoeba-like cell, which is a single-celled organism. When times are tough, whether that’s because of a lack of water or unfavourable temperature changes, the amoeba forms a dormant (sclerotium) stage. During favourable conditions, the amoeba forages for food solitarily, but eventually finds a compatible amoeba and their protoplasm and nuclei fuse. As the slime mould becomes bigger and bigger it transitions to the plasmodium stage, where timelapse photography allows us to see it moving across the forest floor.