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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.
Protists are the eukaryotes that cannot be classified as plants, fungi or animals. They are mostly unicellular and microscopic.Many unicellular protists, particularly protozoans, are motile and can generate movement using flagella, cilia or pseudopods.
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]
A protist (/ ˈ p r oʊ t ɪ s t / PROH-tist) or protoctist is any eukaryotic organism that is not an animal, plant, or fungus.Protists do not form a natural group, or clade, but are a paraphyletic grouping of all descendants of the last eukaryotic common ancestor excluding plants, animals, and fungi.
Protists grow in a wide variety of moist habitats and a majority of them are free-living organisms. In these moist environments, plankton and terrestrial forms can also be found. Protists are chemoorganotrophic [ organisms which oxidize the chemical bonds in organic compounds as their energy source] [ 3 ] and are responsible for recycling ...
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 .
Protists are distributed across all major groups of eukaryotes, including those that contain multicellular algae, green plants, animals, and fungi. If photosynthetic and fungal protists are distinguished from protozoa, they appear as shown in the phylogenetic tree of eukaryotic groups.
Animals and fungi are also more closely related to amoebas than to plants, and plants are more closely related to the SAR supergroup of protists than to animals or fungi. [citation needed] Animals and fungi are both heterotrophs, unlike plants, and while fungi are sessile like plants, there are also sessile animals.