Slashdot Mirror
"Farming" Amoebas Discovered
Researchers from Rice University have found a type of amoeba that practices a sort of "primitive farming behavior." When their bacteria food become scarce, the Dictyostelium discoideum will group together and form a "fruiting body" that will disperse bacteria spores to a new area. From the article: "The behavior falls short of the kind of 'farming' that more advanced animals do; ants, for example, nurture a single fungus species that no longer exists in the wild. But the idea that an amoeba that spends much of its life as a single-celled organism could hold short of consuming a food supply before decamping is an astonishing one. More than just a snack for the journey of dispersal, the idea is that the bacteria that travel with the spores can 'seed' a new bacterial colony, and thus a food source in case the new locale should be lacking in bacteria." It's good to know that even a single celled creature is not immune to the pull of Farmville.
Anyone think it is weird that this was found out at Rice University?
how do they make those little tractors?
rewriting history since 2109
The article doesn't talk about bacteria spores, but spores of the amoeba that have bacteria inside of them. Most of these bacteria are from kinds that the amoeba "likes" to eat, so when they get to a new location, they have their "favorite" food with them. The bacteria multiply, and the amoeba feasts.
Somehow, it doesn't work so well when I go abroad and try to take raw material for my favorite food (20oz T-Bone, FYI).
You can get more info here.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Guess you haven't been attentive enough :)
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Farming: "The practice of cultivating the land or raising stock".
Well, they took their stock with them, the stock was raised (i.e. multiplied) so they have a source of food. Sound like farming. Of course, it's very basic and with no intelligence behind it (just instincts), but nevertheless, it's cool. Obviously, this behavior came about due to an evolutionary advantage, but so did the ant's behavior and any other behavior you see in nature. If it wouldn't have been advantageous from an evolutionary POV, it wouldn't have been inherited to the next generations.
Let the pedantic discussion ensue!
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
One in three can actually farm, since they travel with their bacteria.
I guess that means that two in three are accepting agricultural subsidies instead of farming?
If my mom and aunt send me requests from AmoebaVille I will throw a fit.
Actually no, they taken "farming" and non-"farming" strains and introduced them to a sterile growth medium, then introduced their progeny to media with bacteria present. The farming strain again displays this behaviour when creating the fruiting body, and the non farming strains do not. It's a clearly heritable trait, and (at least now) there's nothing accidental about the behaviour. Of course, they don't select for particular species of bacteria, so it's pretty crude, and can lead to carying along non-food bacteria.
Yes, long been known that slime molds display colonial behaviour, and that that genus has a motile "slug" colony form when it has exhausting the local food supply (really creepy to see a "plant-like" thing congeal into an "animal-like" thing). The new discovery is the fact that a significant amount of dictyo colonies carry food bacteria along with their spores, to grow wherever they land. They likely haven't outcompeted the non farming strains due to the trade-off (i.e, non farming strains do better in bacteria rich regions, while farming strains do better in bacteria free regions, bacteria meaning the ones they can eat)