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A protist (/ ˈ p r oʊ t ɪ s t / PROH-tist) or protoctist is any eukaryotic organism that is not an animal, land plant, or fungus.Protists do not form a natural group, or clade, but are a polyphyletic grouping of several independent clades that evolved from the last eukaryotic common ancestor.
A protist (/ ˈ p r oʊ t ɪ s t /) is any eukaryotic organism (one with cells containing a nucleus) that is not an animal, plant, or fungus.The protists do not form a natural group, or clade, since they exclude certain eukaryotes with whom they share a common ancestor; [a] but, like algae or invertebrates, the grouping is used for convenience.
Systematists today do not treat Protista as a formal taxon, but the term "protist" is still commonly used for convenience in two ways. [22] The most popular contemporary definition is a phylogenetic one, that identifies a paraphyletic group: [23] a protist is any eukaryote that is not an animal, (land) plant, or (true) fungus; this definition [24] excludes many unicellular groups, like the ...
Protistology is a scientific discipline devoted to the study of protists, a highly diverse group of eukaryotic organisms. All eukaryotes apart from animals, plants and fungi are considered protists. [1]
Some authors classify Protozoa as a subgroup of mostly motile Protists. [31] Others class any unicellular eukaryotic microorganism as Protists, and make no reference to 'Protozoa'. [32] In 2005, members of the Society of Protozoologists voted to change its name to the International Society of Protistologists. [33]
This is a highly diverse group of organisms that are not easy to classify. [62] [63] Several algae species are multicellular protists, and slime molds have unique life cycles that involve switching between unicellular, colonial, and multicellular forms. [64] The number of species of protists is unknown since only a small proportion has been ...
Marine protists are defined by their habitat as protists that live in marine environments, that is, in the saltwater of seas or oceans or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. Life originated as marine single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and later evolved into more complex eukaryotes .
The members have little in common apart from being Eukaryota that are not plants, animals or fungi i.e., not complex multicellular organisms. Wastebasket taxon (also called a wastebin taxon , [ 1 ] dustbin taxon [ 2 ] or catch-all taxon [ 3 ] ) is a term used by some taxonomists to refer to a taxon that has the purpose of classifying organisms ...