Dictyostelium
Dictyostelium is a genus of single- and multi-celled eukaryotic, phagotrophic bacterivores. Though they are Protista and in no way fungal, they traditionally are known as "slime molds". They are present in most terrestrial ecosystems as a normal and often abundant component of the soil microflora, and play an important role in the maintenance of balanced bacterial populations in soils.
The genus Dictyostelium is in the order Dictyosteliida, the so-called cellular slime molds or social amoebae. In turn the order is in the infraphylum Mycetozoa. Members of the order are of great theoretical interest in biology because they have aspects of both unicellularity and multicellularity. The individual cells in their independent phase are common on organic detritus or in damp soils and caves. In this phase they are amoebae. Typically, the amoebal cells grow separately and wander independently, feeding mainly on bacteria. However, they interact to form multi-cellular structures following starvation. Groups of up to about 100,000 cells signal each other by releasing chemoattractants such as cyclic AMP (cAMP) or glorin. They then coalesce by chemotaxis to form an aggregate that becomes surrounded by an extracellular matrix. The aggregate forms a fruiting body, with cells differentiating individually into different components of the final structure. In some species, the whole aggregate may move collectively – forming a structure known as a grex or "slug" – before finally forming a fruiting body.
33 branches of this genus, most-observed first
Dictyostelium mucoroides
speciesDictyostelium mucoroides
Dictyostelium rosarium
speciesDictyostelium rosarium
Dictyostelium discoideum
speciesDictyostelium discoideum
Dictyostelium leptosomum
speciesDictyostelium leptosomum
Dictyostelium aureocephalum
speciesDictyostelium aureocephalum
Dictyostelium aureum
speciesDictyostelium aureum
Dictyostelium austroandinum
speciesDictyostelium austroandinum
Dictyostelium barbibulus
speciesDictyostelium barbibulus
Dictyostelium brefeldianum
speciesDictyostelium brefeldianum
Dictyostelium brevicaule
speciesDictyostelium brevicaule
Dictyostelium brunneum
speciesDictyostelium brunneum
Dictyostelium capitatum
speciesDictyostelium capitatum
Dictyostelium chordatum
speciesDictyostelium chordatum
Dictyostelium citrinum
speciesDictyostelium citrinum
Dictyostelium crassicaule
speciesDictyostelium crassicaule
Dictyostelium clavatum
speciesDictyostelium clavatum
Dictyostelium dimigraformum
speciesDictyostelium dimigraformum
Dictyostelium firmibasis
speciesDictyostelium firmibasis
Dictyostelium gargantuum
speciesDictyostelium gargantuum
Dictyostelium giganteum
speciesDictyostelium giganteum
Dictyostelium implicatum
speciesDictyostelium implicatum
Dictyostelium intermedium
speciesDictyostelium intermedium
Dictyostelium leptosomopsis
speciesDictyostelium leptosomopsis
Dictyostelium longosporum
speciesDictyostelium longosporum
Dictyostelium macrocephalum
speciesDictyostelium macrocephalum
Dictyostelium medium
speciesDictyostelium medium
Dictyostelium pseudobrefeldianum
speciesDictyostelium pseudobrefeldianum
Dictyostelium purpureum
speciesDictyostelium purpureum
Dictyostelium quercibrachium
speciesDictyostelium quercibrachium
Dictyostelium robustum
speciesDictyostelium robustum
Dictyostelium septentrionale
speciesDictyostelium septentrionale
Dictyostelium sphaerocephalum
speciesDictyostelium sphaerocephalum
Dictyostelium valdivianum
speciesDictyostelium valdivianum
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Dictyostelium in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 119000.