Slime Moulds Don’t Only Look Fascinating, They’re Also Much Smarter Than You’d Expect

On the forest floors of Australia’s wet temperate regions, some fascinating organisms conquer their environment with their unexpected wit – and us with their looks.

Slime moulds are not what you might expect from their name. They are not slimy or even mouldy – they are actually a group of acellular organisms that can join together to form complex structures, move around, feed and reproduce. They have been around for about a billion years, and they play an important role in forest ecology, helping to break down organic matter and recycle nutrients.

Sarah Lloyd is a naturalist and photographer who has been fascinated by slime moulds for over a decade. She lives in a forested property at Black Sugarloaf Mountain in northern Tasmania, where she has collected more than 2000 specimens, representing over 120 species. She has also found four new species, one new genus (yet to be published) and had one named after her: Alwisia lloydiae. Her work and amazing photos allow us a rare insight into the world of these remarkable organisms.

Slime moulds are not fungi, nor are they plants or animals – but they do have some similarities with fungi and animals. Like animals, they can move and feed on other organisms. And like mushrooms, they are born from spores.

But in fact, they are amoebae that can exist as single cells or aggregate into structures with multiple nuclei. The latter are called plasmodia, which are masses of protoplasm that can creep over the forest floor and logs or up tree trunks.

Slime moulds mainly feed on bacteria, but they can also consume fungi, algae and other microorganisms. They can sense the direction of food sources by detecting chemical gradients in their environment – and they can also avoid obstacles and predators by changing their course or retracting their branches.

But there’s much more to why slime moulds are not just mindless blobs of cells. They have remarkable abilities to communicate and cooperate with each other to form networks and solve problems. For example, they can adapt to changing conditions by reorganizing their networks or switching between different modes of behavior.

Some slime moulds can also form optimal paths between food sources by mimicking the structure of leaf veins – or railway networks, for that matter. In 2010, Japanese and British researchers fed a slime mould nutrients mimicking the Tokyo subway nodes, yielding a network remarkably resembling the actual system. This event sparked the development of biologically inspired adaptive network design.

Slime moulds communicate with each other by exchanging chemical signals or electrical impulses through their plasmodia. They can also fuse with other plasmodia that share the same genetic identity or compatible signals. This allows them to share information and resources, as well as increase their size and complexity.

Slime moulds are not only important for forest ecology, but also for human curiosity and appreciation. As Sarah’s photos testify, they display a stunning variety of colors, patterns, textures and forms that defy their (not so) simple nature.

They can be found in almost every habitat on Earth, from tropical rainforests to polar regions. They can also be grown in laboratories or at home, using simple materials such as oat flakes, agar plates or petri dishes.

Sarah Lloyd captures the beauty and diversity of slime moulds in her photos, which she shares on her website and Instagram. She also organizes workshops and surveys to teach people how to find, identify and photograph slime moulds. She hopes that by raising awareness and interest in these amazing organisms, she can also inspire people to protect and conserve their natural habitats.

Here are some more of her amazing photos to inspire you to learn about these fascinating organisms.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7