Springtails versus slimemould ?

[Lord V]

Was greeted with one of the oddest things i've seen while shooting macro yesterday morning. It had been fairly warm overnight (about 9.C) so I checked to see if anything interesting was going on in my compost bins. Spotted a lot of white flecks on the rim of one bin which I assumed were small springtails feeding on biofilm. Looking down the MPE-65 lens at 5:1 was a slightly different story - there were indeed springtails- Tiny Proisotoma minuta less than 1mm long but the biofilm seemd to be eating them. Can only assume they were trying to feed on slimemould plasmodia which in turn were actually engilfing them and killing them ?

Brian v.

[Lord V]

Took some more shots the day after- they were still at it - 100% crops from the 5:1 shots seem to indicate the battle was between nematode worms and springtails and not slimemould slugs as I previously supposed.
Brian v.

[jaguarondi]

I'm no expert but I wonder if they're too big for nematodes. 1mm would be a big nematode and some look longer, longer even than the springtails. Maybe they're enchytraeids, in which case I doubt if they're attacking live springtails - just a thought.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by jaguarondi

I'm no expert but I wonder if they're too big for nematodes. 1mm would be a big nematode and some look longer, longer even than the springtails. Maybe they're enchytraeids, in which case I doubt if they're attacking live springtails - just a thought.

Brandlings start off pretty small and form up into a typical 'vermicelli' mass, so I wonder if that is what we seeing here, though my concept of scale is very poor so I may be off by an order of magnitude.

CM

[Lord V]

Not really certain what was going on but there were some springtails still moving about with just a few of the worms on them (ie certainly not dead). I think the worms would be around 2mm long which is certainly not unknown for free living nematodes.
Brian v.