When nutrients are provided uniformly, the nuclei in the plasmodium divide synchronously, accounting for the interest in using P. polycephalum as a model organism to study the cell cycle, or more specifically the nuclear division cycle. When the plasmodium is starved, it has two alternative developmental pathways.
The plasmodium is typically diploid and propagates via growth and nuclear division without cytokinesis, resulting in the macroscopic multinucleate syncytium; in other words, a large single cell with multiple nuclei. While nutrients are available, the network-shaped plasmodium can grow to a foot or more in diameter.