Abstract
EXPERIMENTS were designed by one of us (H. M. S.) to determine whether or not there was any kind of competition between different species of slime mould when they were inoculated in the same culture dish. If Escherichia coli (as a food source) was spread with an inoculation loop over the surface of non-nutrient agar1 in a Petri dish and approximately equal numbers of spores from two species of slime mould were mixed in one small spot, then invariably only one of the species developed (either in the light or in the dark); the second species appeared to be completely inhibited. Using this method, the following hierarchy of inhibition was established: Dictyostelium purpureum (No. 2) > Polysphondylium violaceum (No. 6) > D. discoideum (No. 1) > D. mucoroides (No. 2). This method was also attempted using the wild type of strain No. 6 of D. mucoroides and a small mutant derived from the same strain. In this case also, one form (the wild type) completely inhibited the development of the mutant.
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References
Shaffer, B. M., Nature, 157, 133 (1946).
Russell, G. K., and Bonner, J. T., Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, 87, 187 (1960).
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SNYDER, H., CECCARINI, C. Interspecific Spore Inhibition in the Cellular Slime Moulds. Nature 209, 1152 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/2091152a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2091152a0
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