  It is found that the existence of spacetime foam leads to a situation in
which the number of fundamental quantum bosonic fields is a variable quantity.
The general aspects of an exact theory that allows for a variable number of
fields are discussed, and the simplest observable effects generated by the foam
are estimated. It is shown that in the absence of processes related to
variations in the topology of space, the concept of an effective field can be
reintroduced and standard field theory can be restored. However, in the
complete theory the ground state is characterized by a nonvanishing particle
number density. From the effective-field standpoint, such particles are "dark".
It is assumed that they comprise dark matter of the universe. The properties of
this dark matter are discussed, and so is the possibility of measuring the
quantum fluctuation in the field potentials.
