Protists
Most eukaryotes are single-celled
organisms.
Protists, along with plants, animals,and fungi,
are classified as eukaryotes; they are in
domain Eukarya, one of the three domains of
life. Unlike the cells of prokaryotes,
eukaryotic cells have a nucleus and other
membrane-enclosed organelles, such as
mitochondrai and the Golgi apparatus. Such
organelles provide specific location where
particular cellular functions are
accomplished, making the structure and
organization of eukaryotic cells more complex
than those of prokaryotic cells.
Four sugergroups of Eukaryotes.
Our understanding of the evolutionary history
of eukaryotic diversity has been in flux in
recent years. Not only has kingdom protista
been abandoned. But other hypotheses have
been discarded as well. For example,many
biologists once thought that the oldest
lineage of living eukaryotes was the
amitochondriate protists, organisms without
conventional mitochondria and with fewer
membrane-enclosed organelles than other
protist groups.
Endosymbiosis in Eukaryotic Evolution
What gave rise to the enormous diversity of
protists that exist today? There is abundant
evidence that much of protistan diversity has
its origins in endosymbiosis, a relationship
between two species in which one organism
lives inside the cell or cells of another
organism(the host).
The evidence also suggests that mitochondria
evolved before plastids.
Excavata
Some members of this supergroup have an
“excavated” groove on one side of the cell
body. Two major clades (the parabasalids and
diplomonads) have modified mitochondria;
other (the euglenozoans) have flagella that
different structure from those of other
organisms.
Excavates includes parasites such as Giardia,
as well as many predatory and photosynthetic
species.
“SAR” Clade
This supergroup contains (and is named after)
three large and very diverse clades:
stramenopila, Alveolata, and Rhizaaria.
Stramenopilies includes some of most
important photosynthetic organisms on earth,
such as the diatoms shown here. Alveolates
also include many photosynthetic species as
well as important pathogens, such as
Plasmodium, which causes malaria. Many of
the key groups of photosynthetic
stramenopiles and alveolates are thought to
have arisen by secondary endosymbiosis.
Archaeplastida
This group of eukaryotes includes red algae
and green algae, along with land plants
(kingdom plantae). Red algae and green algae
include unicellular species, colonial species
(such as the green alga Volvox), and
multicellular species. Many of the large algae
known informally as “seaweeds” are
multicellular red or green algae.
Unikonta
This group of eukaryotes includes amoebas
that have lobe- or tube shaped pseudopodia,
as well as animals, fungi, and non-amoeba
protists that are closely related to animals or
fungi. According to one current hypothesis,
the unikonts may have been the first group of
eukaryotes to diverge from other eukaryotes;
however, this hypothesis has yet to be widely
accepted.
Diversity of plastids produced by
endsymbiosis.
Studies of plastid-bearing eukaryotes suggest
that plastids evolved from a cyanobacterium
that was engulfed by an ancestral
heterotrophic eukaryote (primary
endosymbiosis). That ancestor then
diversified into red algae and green algae,
some of which were subsequently engulfed by
other eukaryotes (secondary endosymbiosis).
Diplomonds and Parabasalids
The protists in these two groups lacks plastids
and have highly modified mitochondria (until
recently, they were thought to lack
mitochondria altogether). Most diplomonads
and parabasalids are found in anaerobic
environments.
Diplomonads
Have reduced mitochondria called mitosomes.
There are organelles lack functional electron
transport chains and hance cannot use
oxygen to help extract energy from
carbohydrates and other organic molecules.
Instead, diplomonads get the energy they
need from anaerobic biochemical pathway.
Parabasalids
Also have reduced mitochondria; called
hydrogenosomes, these organelles generate
some energy anaerobically, relaesing
hydrogen gas as a by-product. The best-
known parabasalid is trichomonas vaginalis, a
sexually transmitted parasite that infects
some 5 million people each year, T, vaginalis
travels along the mucus-coated lining of the
human reproductive and urinary tracks by
moving its flagella and by undulating part of
its plasma membrane.
Kinetoplastids
Protists called kinetoplastids have a single,
large mitochondrion that contains an
organized mass of DNA called a kinetoplast.
These protists include species that feed on
prokaryote in freshwater, marine, and moist
terrestrial ecosystems, as well as species that
parasitize animals, plants, and other protists.
The “SAR” clade is a highly diverse group of
protists defined by DNA similarities
Our second supergroup, the so-called “SAR”
clade, was proposed recently based on whole-
genome DNA sequence analyses. These
studies have found tat three major clades of
protists- the stramenopiles, alveolates, and
rhizarians- form a monophyletic supergroup.
This supergroup contains a large, extremely
diverse collection of protists, to date, this
supergroup has not received a formal name
but it instead known by the first letters of its
major clades: the SAR clade.