Protist instance of paraphyletic group
Description
Besides their relatively simple levels of organization, protists do not necessarily have much in common. When used, the term "protists" is now considered to mean a paraphyletic assemblage of similar-appearing but diverse taxa (biological groups); these taxa do not have an exclusive common ancestor beyond being composed of eukaryotes, and have different life cycles, trophic levels, modes of locomotion, and cellular structures.Examples of protists include:
Amoebas (including nucleariids and Foraminifera);
Choanoflagellates; ciliates;
Diatoms;
Dinoflagellates;
Giardia;
Oomycetes (including Phytophthora, the cause of the Great Famine of Ireland); and
Plasmodium (which causes malaria);
slime molds.These examples are unicellular, although oomycetes can join to form filaments, and slime molds can aggregate into a tissue-like mass.
In cladistic systems (classifications based on common ancestry), there are no equivalents to the taxa Protista or Protoctista, as both terms refer to a paraphyletic group that spans the entire eukaryotic branch of the tree of life. In cladistic classification, the contents of Protista are mostly distributed among various supergroups: examples include the
type of example of manifestation of representation of