Abstract
BackgroundDictyostelid cellular slime molds (dictyostelids) are microscopic throughout their entire life cycle. The vegetative phase consists of single-celled amoeboid forms which live in the soil/leaf litter microhabitat of fields and forests along with animal dung, where they feed upon bacteria and other microbes, grow, and multiply until the available food supply is exhausted. When this happens, the amoeboid forms aggregate together in large numbers to form multi-celled pseudoplasmodia, which then give rise to fruiting bodies (sorocarps) that consist of supportive stalks and unwalled sori containing propagative spores.ResultsDictyostelium purpureum var. pseudosessile, a new variant of dictyostelid, is described herein, based on morphological features and molecular data. This new variant was isolated from soil samples collected in two tropical areas of China. The complete spore-to-spore life cycle of this species, which required 50 h, including spore germination, myxamoebae, cell aggregation, pseudoplasmodium, and sorocarp formation, was documented. Descriptions and illustrations are provided for this species based on our collections. Data from ontogeny, morphology and phylogeny analyses (SSU) of D. purpureum var. pseudosessile confirm that it is a Group 4 species according to the newly proposed classification of dictyostelids.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the violet sori, widens at the midpoint of sorophore and simple recurved sorophore bases represent the prominent features for the new variant D. purpureum var. pseudosessile. The latter is a Group 4 species now known from two tropical areas of China where dictyostelids remains understudied.
Highlights
Dictyostelid cellular slime molds are microscopic throughout their entire life cycle
D. purpureum var. pseudosessile forms a clade with D. purpureum (Fig. 1), D. purpureum [5, 11] has sorophores with basal disks, whereas the new variant somewhat widens at the midpoint of sorophore but no basal disks
D. purpureum var. pseudosessile is different with D. purpureum in both morphology and phylogeny
Summary
Dictyostelid cellular slime molds (dictyostelids) are microscopic throughout their entire life cycle. The vegetative phase consists of single-celled amoeboid forms which live in the soil/leaf litter microhabitat of fields and forests along with animal dung, where they feed upon bacteria and other microbes, grow, and multiply until the available food supply is exhausted. Since the first dictyostelid was described by Brefeld [7], more than 100 species have been reported and classified into one class, one order, two families and four genera [8]. These species are distinguished morphologically largely on the basis of differences in sorophore composition and branching pattern. A new classification, based on unique 18S rRNA sequence signatures, was proposed, and this
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