Tiny Molds May Save Vanishing Rainforest
11/9/98
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Title: Tiny Molds May Save Vanishing Rainforest
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 11/9/98
ATHENS, Ohio, November 9, 1998 (ENS) - Miniscule slug-like organisms
living in the tropical soil of a forest in Tikal, Guatemala could hold a
key to saving the world's vanishing rain forests. organisms - slime molds
- are the unusual interest of an Ohio University researcher.
"This area in Guatemala looks like one of the best spots on Earth for
slime molds," said James Cavender, professor of environmental and plant
biology and one of only a handful of botanists in the world who study the
ecology of slime molds.
In Tikal, Cavender has found seven new species of slime molds. About 70
species of slime molds have been discovered worldwide. More than 30 of
these have been identified by Cavender, who has spent nearly 40 years
collecting the organisms in Alaska, the Amazon Basin, Central America,
East Africa, Himalayas, Japan and Switzerland.
The more than 1,000 samples of slime mold spores that Cavender has
preserved at Ohio University could, he believes, be revived and introduced
again into the soil of the world's vanishing rain forests.
When trees in rain forests are cut down, slime molds die from exposure to
direct sun and rain. Without slime molds, forest rebirth is impossible.
"There's a lot of pressure to cut the rain forests, and that means a loss
of soil sustainability," Cavender said. "I hope this will draw people's
attention to the need to preserve rain forests."
Cellular slime molds are primitive organisms that begin life as single-
cell spores that form amoebae. Living in the surface layers of soil, they
feed on bacteria. Before they die, they pile together and form a
multicellular body resembling a slug-like creature several millimeters
long.
They then abandon their animal nature to form a stationary stalk
containing cellulose, which rises above the ground and leaves behind
spores that stick to the feet of scurrying animals on the forest floor,
spreading the spores for new life elsewhere.
"They are extremely old organisms that evolved before plants and animals,
so they have found a very successful way to live in the soil," Cavender
said. "They keep the soil healthy and fertile, and that's why they're so
important."
Cavender's research was published in a recent edition of the journal
Mycologia and was co-authored by Eduardo Vadell, a 1993 graduate of
Ohio University's Department of Environmental and Plant Biology. The
research was funded in part by the Ohio University Research Committee.
c Environment News Service (ENS) 1998