This research addresses the interactions between the unicellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum and a red yeast in a spatial ecosystem over week-long imaging experiments. An inverse relationship between the growth rates of both species is shown, where P. polycephalum has positive growth when the red yeast has a negative growth rate and vice versa. The data also captures successional and oscillatory dynamics between both species. An advanced image analysis methodology for semantic segmentation is used to quantify population density over time, for all components of the ecosystem. We suggest that P. polycephalum is capable of exhibiting a sustainable feeding strategy by depositing a nutritive slime trail, allowing yeast to serve as a periodic food source. This opens a new direction of P. polycephalum research, where the population dynamics of spatial ecosystems can be readily quantified and complex ecological dynamics can be studied.

这项研究通过为期一周的成像实验解决了空间生态系统中单细胞粘菌多头绒泡菌和红酵母之间的相互作用。显示了两种物种的生长速率之间的反比关系，其中P. polycephalum当红酵母具有负生长速率时具有正生长，反之亦然。该数据还捕获了两个物种之间的连续和振荡动态。用于语义分割的高级图像分析方法用于量化生态系统所有组成部分随时间变化的人口密度。我们建议P. polycephalum能够通过沉积有营养的粘液痕迹来展示可持续的喂养策略，使酵母可以作为周期性食物来源。这为P. polycephalum研究开辟了一个新方向，可以很容易地量化空间生态系统的种群动态，并可以研究复杂的生态动态。