New dictyostelid cellular slime molds from South Africa

Cavender, James C.; Vadell, Eduardo M.; Landolt, John C.; Stephenson, Steven L.; Baldauf, Sandra L.; Roux, Jolanda; Cavender, Nicole; Winsett, Katherine E.

doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.383.3.1

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…More than fifty individuals participated in the PBI project, ranging from students (both undergraduate and graduate) to senior faculty and parataxonomists from the country in which surveys were being carried out. Many thousands of specimens were recorded or collected, providing the basis for more than one hundred presentations, book chapters, and papers for publication [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Moreover, introductory workshops on myxomycetes were presented to various groups of individuals, particularly students, in a number of places worldwide.…”

Section: Multi-year Surveysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Past and Ongoing Field-Based Studies of Myxomycetes

Stephenson

2023

Microorganisms

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Evidence from molecular studies indicates that myxomycetes (also called myxogastrids or plasmodial slime molds) have a long evolutionary history, and the oldest known fossil is from the mid-Cretaceous. However, they were not “discovered” until 1654, when a brief description and a woodcut depicting what is almost certainly the common species Lycogala epidendrum was published. First thought to be fungi, myxomycetes were not universally recognized as completely distinct until well into the twentieth century. Biodiversity surveys for the group being carried out over several years are relatively recent, with what is apparently the first example being carried out in the 1930s. Beginning in the 1980s, a series of such surveys yielded large bodies of data on the occurrence and distribution of myxomycetes in terrestrial ecosystems. The most notable of these were the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) project carried out in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Planetary Biodiversity Inventory Project (PBI) carried out in localities throughout the world, and the Myxotropic project being carried out throughout the Neotropics. The datasets available from both past and ongoing surveys now allow global and biogeographical patterns of myxomycetes to be assessed for the first time.

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