Multi-scaled adaptability in motility and pattern formation of the Physarum plasmodium

The plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a unicellular and multinuclear giant amoeba that has macroscopic size, and by this particular nature the organism is attracting a lot of attention in the research fields such as systems science, nature-inspired bio-computing and swarm behavioural study. In this paper, we investigated how the plasmodium generates new motility and morphology, and found that there are allometric relationships between the cell volume and morphology, and between cell size and cell motility. We further discuss how these relationships are realised, and these relationships are deeply connected to the organism's benefit of being a large-scale unicellular organism.