From morphological to molecular: studies of myxomycetes since the publication of the Martin and Alexopoulos (1969) monograph

Myxomycetes (plasmodial slime molds or myxogastrids) are a group of eukaryotic microorganisms usually present and sometimes abundant in terrestrial ecosystems. Because they produce aerial spore-bearing structures that resemble those of certain fungi and also typically occur in some of the same types of ecological situations as fungi, myxomycetes have been traditionally studied by mycologists, and this continued to be the case for the greater part of the twentieth century. However, there is now abundant molecular data to confirm that they are amoebozoans and not fungi. Efforts are currently underway to develop the first molecular phylogeny for myxomycetes, and several recent studies have used molecular techniques to detect the presence of these organisms in nature by means of direct environmental sampling.