The ability to change one’s behaviour based on past experience has obvious fitness benefits. Drawing from past experience requires some kind of information storage and retrieval. The acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum has previously been shown to use stored information about negative stimuli. Here, we repeatedly exposed the slime mould to three stimuli with differing levels of potential risk: light, salt and lavender. We asked if the slime mould would change its foraging behaviour depending on the level of risk. In our experiment, taking risk yielded better food. We consistently selected individuals that made the same foraging decision (accepting risk or avoiding risk) over multiple trials. Hence, the same individuals were tested over a period of time, but only individuals that continued to make the same decision were allowed to continue. Regardless of selection regime, slime moulds in the light became more likely to select the food in the light over time, while those exposed to salt became more salt averse. Lavender had no effect. Our results can cautiously be interpreted as examples of non-associative learning, adding to a growing body of work showing that the absence of a central nervous system is no impediment to possessing sophisticated information processing.

根据过去的经验来改变自己的行为的能力具有明显的健身益处。从过去的经验中吸取教训需要某种信息的存储和检索。无细胞粘液霉菌Physarum polycephalum先前已被证明可以使用所存储的有关负面刺激的信息。在这里，我们将粘液霉菌反复暴露于三种刺激物，它们具有不同的潜在风险水平：光，盐和熏衣草。我们询问了粘液霉菌是否会根据风险程度改变其觅食行为。在我们的实验中，冒险可以带来更好的食物。我们一贯选择在多个试验中做出相同觅食决策（接受风险或避免风险）的个体。因此，同一个人经过一段时间的测试，但只有继续做出相同决定的个人才可以继续。无论选择哪种方式，随着时间的推移，灯光下的粘菌霉菌更有可能在灯光下选择食物，而那些暴露于盐的食物则更不喜欢盐。薰衣草没有效果。