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Protists : The First Eukaryotic Organisms

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In this essay, I will discus protists as the first eukaryotic organisms, the parameters used to classify protists, including feeding, reproduction and their unique features. The kingdom Protista is an artificial grouping, defined only by what members of this group are not: protists are neither plants nor animals nor fungi, nor are they bacteria or archaeans (Cain, 2012, p. 55). Biologists today, still agree that protista is an artificial kingdom, composed of groups with very different evolutionary histories. Several classifications have been developed, split, and assigned to different members, such as, Plantae, Fungi, and Animalia. Protista is a category of eukaryotic organisms that have not been formally assigned to other kingdoms or to separate kingdoms of their own (Cain, 2012, p. 55). It is not clear how, protists fall into play in the evolutionary relationship to one another and to other living organisms. As a result, there are a several competing hypotheses, and for that reason, there are different evolutionary trees, postulating the relationships of the protists. The tree is based on many different lines of evidence, including comparisons of cell structure, metabolic chemistry, and DNA code; and it makes clear that protists do not constitute just one distinct branch on the tree of life (Cain, 2012, p. 56). The presence of plants, animals, and fungi on various branches of the evolutionary tree shows that protista is not a natural grouping; that is,

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