Regular oscillations in suspensions of a putatively chaotic mutant of Dictyostelium discoideum.

We have tested the light-scattering properties of suspensions of the Dictyostelium discoideum mutant HH201 derived from the mutant Fr17. Previous studies indicated that HH201 and Fr17 possess highly irregular rhythmic properties which might represent aperiodic oscillations, i.e. chaos. We report that the former mutant can display regular oscillatory behavior. Possible explanations for this result are discussed, including that of a transition from chaotic to periodic behavior resulting from some parameter change or from strong intercellular coupling in cell suspensions.