5.3 Module 5.4: protists

Eukaryotic organisms that did not fit the criteria for the kingdoms Animalia, Fungi, or Plantae historically were called protists and were classified into the kingdom Protista. Protists include the single-celled eukaryotes living in pond water ( [link] ), although protist species live in a variety of other aquatic and terrestrial environments, and occupy many different niches. Not all protists are microscopic and single-celled; there exist some very large multicellular species, such as the kelps. During the past two decades, the field of molecular genetics has demonstrated that some protists are more related to animals, plants, or fungi than they are to other protists. For this reason, protist lineages originally classified into the kingdom Protista have been reassigned into new kingdoms or other existing kingdoms. The evolutionary lineages of the protists continue to be examined and debated. In the meantime, the term “protist” still is used informally to describe this tremendously diverse group of eukaryotes. As a collective group, protists display an astounding diversity of morphologies, physiologies, and ecologies.

Characteristics of protists

There are over 100,000 described living species of protists, and it is unclear how many undescribed species may exist. Since many protists live in symbiotic relationships with other organisms and these relationships are often species specific, there is a huge potential for undescribed protist diversity that matches the diversity of the hosts. As the catchall term for eukaryotic organisms that are not animals, plants, fungi, or any single phylogenetically related group, it is not surprising that few characteristics are common to all protists.

Nearly all protists exist in some type of aquatic environment, including freshwater and marine environments, damp soil, and even snow. Several protist species are parasites that infect animals or plants. A parasite is an organism that lives on or in another organism and feeds on it, often without killing it. A few protist species live on dead organisms or their wastes, and contribute to their decay.

Protist structure

The cells of protists are among the most elaborate of all cells. Most protists are microscopic and unicellular, but some true multicellular forms exist. A few protists live as colonies that behave in some ways as a group of free-living cells and in other ways as a multicellular organism. Still other protists are composed of enormous, multinucleate, single cells that look like amorphous blobs of slime or, in other cases, like ferns. In fact, many protist cells are multinucleated; in some species, the nuclei are different sizes and have distinct roles in protist cell function.