NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION FUNDS $2.075 MILLION GRANT FOR PLANETARY BIODIVERSITY INVENTORY

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Like the Terminator prototype, certain species of slime molds can accomplish an amazing feat: in the plasmodial stage, if blasted into bits, the pieces can slowly find one another and ooze back together.

Plasmodial slime molds spend part of their lives as giant single cells with thousands of nuclei, while cellular slime molds spend most of their lives as single cells, able to form a great swarm when triggered by a chemical signal. A third type remains microscopic throughout their whole lives. All are called slime molds because a "slimy" amoeboid cell eventually develops into a delicate and often beautiful spore-bearing structure that looks like a miniature mushroom. All come in a host of primordial colors and shapes, from vibrant yellow and red to smooth or warty cones and balls.

Known more formally as Eumycetozoans, these terrestrial organisms fascinate amateur and professional biologists alike. They are also the subject of a new $2.075 million, five-year research grant from the National Science Foundation to fund a Planetary Biodiversity Inventory of the group. Funds from the NSF grant, the largest ever received by faculty in biological sciences, will be disbursed through the University of Arkansas.

Principal investigators for the grant are Associate Professor Fred Spiegel and Research Professor Steve Stephenson in Fulbright College’s Department of Biological Sciences, Dr. James Cavender of Ohio University, Dr. Carlos Lado of the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid, and Dr. Martin Schnittler of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Germany.

The grant was one of only four such awards made in the NSF’s new Planetary Biodiversity Inventory Program, created to fund projects that determine the global distribution patterns of particular groups of organisms. Previously, studies were made of organisms in particular geographic areas; as a result, knowledge of each group was somewhat fragmented and information was hard to retrieve.

In a unique collaboration, Spiegel, Stephenson and their colleagues will join with nearly 100 researchers worldwide to compile a global inventory of Eumycetozoans. They will study the ecology and taxonomy of the various types of slime molds, which can be found in soil, dead plants, rotting logs, stumps, and other microhabitats on every continent. Their results will be presented in a series of publications and on a web site dedicated to the project.

"They are major predators of other microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeasts, and algae, but because they have cryptic lifestyles and only a small group of specialists study them, they are among the least researched groups of terrestrial organisms. We plan to compile a major specimen database, which we will in turn use to construct world distribution maps for all known and new species of Eumycetozoans," said Spiegel.

Slime molds are important in the environment because by breaking down bacteria and fungi, they release minerals back into the soil. They can actually communicate between cells and differentiate themselves into favorable shapes for survival, and so can teach scientists valuable lessons about cellular behavior.

Cancer researchers, for example, have found some molds enormously useful for investigating just how nuclei divide.

"One type of cellular slime molds feeds on bacteria, and when it gets enough to eat, divides many times to produce a population of cells. When it begins starving, it sends out a chemical that causes all of the cells to mass together and differentiate into a sausage shaped object resembling a slug. The slug then sits on its end, about a third of it becomes a stalk, and the other two thirds become spores, which are dispersed by rain or small invertebrates. This amazing ability to communicate and organize themselves fascinates many scientists," said Spiegel.

Spiegel, Stephenson and the other researchers will study where the organisms occur, how they are distributed, and how they move around the planet. They will want to know if specialization occurs in specific areas of the world and if the various molds are sharing genes.

"What we are studying essentially is the diversity of life on earth. In the end, we’ll have a global database and be able to trace what the distribution patterns are. Several places don’t have good collection records, such as South America, southeastern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Madagascar. In the end, the University of Arkansas will house one of the world’s largest collection of these specimens," said Spiegel.

In a related NSF grant, Spiegel, Stephenson, and Cavender, with co-principal investigator Dr. Jean-Marc Moncalvo of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, will receive $500,000 over the next five years to foster the development of new taxonomists who research slime molds. This project is part of the NSF PEET (Partnerships to Enhance Expertise in Taxonomy) program that was designed to ensure that groups of organisms for which there are few taxonomists are not left without any new, young experts.

"In this program, our goal will be to help these scientists see themselves as integral members of the larger community of biologists. We’ll bring together experts in the taxonomy of Eumycetozoans to train new Ph.D. students as well as others already working in fields such as developmental biology, cell and molecular biology, and genetics," said Spiegel.

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