Migratory Behaviour of Physarum Polycephalum Microplasmodia

Orateur : Marcus HAUSER (Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Germany)

The motility of amoeboid cells of the plasmodial slime mould Physarum polycephalum was studied experimentally. Analysis of their trajectories and of their mean square displacements reveals two characteristic types of behaviour. Whereas free migration of cells is observed for long time intervals (above 300 s), at short time intervals (of up to 100 s) the motility is due to changes in the cell shape induced by the peristaltic pumping of protoplasm through the cell. We observed that high propagation velocities are correlated with both, episodes of straight motion and an elongated cell shape. Furthermore, the patterns of cell thickness oscillations (that provide for the intracellular peristaltic pumping of protoplasm) also changed as a function of the propagation velocity of the cell.

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