This document summarizes the diversity of protists. It discusses their general characteristics, including being unicellular, colonial, or multicellular eukaryotes that can reproduce sexually or asexually. It then describes different groups of protists based on their nutrition and habitat, including photosynthetic algae, protozoans, fungus-like protists, and specific phyla within each group. Key details are provided on the structure, reproduction, and ecological roles of major protist taxa.

1. Diversity of Protists
RESTY SAMOSA
MAEd Biology
BULSU MALOLOS CAMPUS

2. GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS OF
PROTISTS

3.  Protists are unicellular, colonial, and multicellular
organisms.
 The cells of protists are eukaryotic with a membrane –
bound nucleus and other organelles.
 Reproduce asexually or sexually by conjugation
 Exhibit all three modes of nutrition
Photosynthesis
Ingestion
Absorption

4.  Some protists have photosynthetic organelles called
chloroplasts
 Photosynthetic protists are abundant in oceans, lakes, and
ponds
•Free floating
•Mutually beneficial associations with other organisms:
solar energy captured by the protist is used by host, which
shelters and protects the protist

5.  Photosynthetic protists are collectively known as algae
 Single-celled, non-photosynthetic protists are
collectively known as protozoa

6. PROTOZOANS
(ANIMAL – LIKE PROTISTS)
Subkingdom Mastigobionta

7. GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS
OF
PROTOZOANS

8. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTOZOANS
 Small, usually one – celled, some in colonies of few to many
similar individuals; symmetry none, bilateral, radial or spherical.
 Cell form usually constant, oval, elongate, spherical, or otherwise,
varied in some species and changing with environment or age in
many.
 Nucleus distinct, single or multiple; other structure parts as
organelles; no organs or tissue.
 Lomotion by flagella, cilia, pseudopodia, or movements of the
cell itself.
 Some species with protective housing, or tests; many species
produce resistant cysts or spores to survive unfavorable
conditions and for dispersal.

9. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTOZOANS
 Mode of life free – living, commensal, mutualistic, or parasitic.
 Nutrition various;
 Holozoic, subsisting on other organisms
 Saprophytic , living on dissolved substance in the
surroundings.
 Saprozoic, subsisting on dead animal matter;
 Holophytic (autotrophic), producing food by photosysthesis
as in plants.
 Some combine two methods.
 Asexual reproduction by binary fission, multiple fission, or
budding; some with sexual reproduction by fusion of gametes or
by conjugation.

10. Phylum Ciliophora
(Ciliates)
 Covered by short hair – like structures called cilia
 The cilia contact in “waves” to push the organism along.
 Celia movement may “sweep” food into the mouth – like structures.
 Their cells contain a micronucleus (concerned with reproduction) and
macnucleus (controls the normal metabolism).
 They found in both freshwater and saltwater
 Most are holozoic
 Produce either asexually (transverse binary fusion) or sexually
(conjunction
 Those in the genus Paramecium are the most complex of the protozoa.

11. Phylum Rhizopoda
(Sarcodina)
Sarcodina)
Move and engulf their prey by means pseudopods.
Pseudopods forms when the cytoplasm streams forward in
a particular direction.
Some may cause disease such as Entamoeba histolytica, a
parasite in human intestine that causes amoebic dysentery.

12. Phylum Apicomplexa
(Sporozoans)
Non motile parasites
 contain a complex of organelles used to invade host cells or
tissues
Exhibits complicated life cycle involving sexual and asexual
phases, often with two or more hosts, such as Plasmodium
vivax that cause malaria, hosts are female Anopheles
mosquito and humans.

13. Phylum Zoomastigophora
(Zooflagellates)
Move by means of flagella
Covered by a pellicle that is often reinforced by underlying
microtubules.
Reproduce by traverse binary fission
Mostly are involved in symbiotic relationship that may cause human
diseases, such as cysts of Giardia Lambia transmitted through
contaminated water and attached to intestinal wall cause severe
diarrhea, Trichomonas vaginalis infects the vagina and urethra of
women and even prostate, seminal vesicle and urethra of men, it also
agents of African sleeping sickness, Trypanosomes enters the
bloodstream with the bite of tsetse fly, and invade the brain and
spinal cord

14. Phylum Foraminifera
(forams)
Secretes many – chambered test with pores through which
cytoplasmic projections extend to move and obtain food.
Foraminiferans produce elaborate calcium carbonate shells with holes
• Deposits of fossilized foraminiferans form chalk
Contain unicellular algal endosymbionts that provide food by
photosynthesis.
Foraminiferans species live on the ocean floor, but others are part of
the plankton.

15. Phylum Actinopoda
(radiolarians)
Are mostly marine plankton that obtain food by means of
axopods, slender cytoplasmic projections that extend
through pores in their shells.
Radiolarians are actinopods with glassy shells.
a radiolarians, have a membrane or capsule divides the cells
into two biochemically distinct zone, one with the nucleus and
the other with so many digestive vacuoles that the cells looks
frothy.

16. Algae
Subkingdom Phycobionta
Plant – like Protists

17. GENERAL
CHARACTERISTICS OF
ALGAE

18. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ALGAE
 Aquatic organism capable of photosynthesis
 Part of phytoplanktons
 Possess chloroplast and cell wall.
 Store reserve food.
 Usually unicellular, some are colonial and multicellular.
 Classified according to their pigments.
 Chlorophyta
 Phaeophyta
 Chrysophyta
 Pyrrophyta
 Rhodophyta

19. Phylum Chlorophyta
(Green Algae)
 Ancestor of the land plants
 Live on surface of fresh water & near the shores of oceans
 Possess chlorophyll a & b; store reserve food as starch
inside the chloroplast & have cell walls that contain
cellulose.
 Occurs as unicellular (Chiamydomonas), filamentous,
(Oedogonium, Spirogyra), colonial (volvox), or
multicellular (ulva)
 May reproduce sexually & asexually, ulva exhibits
alteration of generation like plants.

20. Phylum Phaeophyta
(Brown Algae)
 Known as “Giant of the algal world”.
 Grow along the sholine, such as Laminaria (kelp) & focus.
 Commonly called as seedweeds (large complex alga)
 Possess chlorophyll a & c, fucoxanthin.
 Store reserve food as laminarin.
 Range from small filamentous form to large multicellular form
 exhibits alternation or generation life cycle.
 Source of alginin, a pectin – like material that is added to ice
cream and cream product for smooth consistency.
 Examples: Sargassum, Marcocytis, Fucuc, Laminaria.

21. Phylum Rhodophyta
(Red Algae)
 Known as the “deepest – dwelling plants”.
 Multicellular eukaryotes
 Live in warmer seawater
 Much smaller & more delicate than brown algae.
 Some simple filament but most exist as complex, branched, expanded
ribbon – like.
 Possess chlorophyll a & phycobillins.
 Reserve food is glycogen – like floridean starch.
 Source of agar used commercially to make capsules for vitamins &
drugs, & base material for cosmetics.
 Used as culture medium for bacteria & in food preparation as anti –
dying agent for baked goods & to make jellies & desserts set rapidly.

22. Phylum Chrysophyta
(Diatoms)
 The most numerous unicellular algae in the oceans and in freshwater
habitats.
 Cell wall has an outer layer of silica.
 The golden algae contain yellow – brown pigments & store food as oils
& starch, like carbohydrates
 Exhibits sexual & asexual reproduction.
 Examples : Botrydium, Chrysameba, Pinnularia.
 Important source of food & oxygen for heterotrophs.
 Remains of diatoms accumulated in the ocean floor (diatomaceous) are
mined to use as sound – proofing material and as filtering agents.

23. Phylum Euglenophyta
(Euglenoids)
 small phylum (division) of the kingdom Protista, consisting of mostly
unicellular aquatic algae.
 Most live in freshwater; many have flagella and are motile.
 The outer part of the cell consists of a firm but flexible layer called a pellicle,
or periplast, which cannot properly be considered a cell wall.
 Some euglenoids contain chloroplasts that contain the photosynthetic
pigments chlorophyll a and b, as in the phylum
 heterotrophic and can ingest or absorb their food. Food is stored as a
polysaccharide, paramylon.
 Reproduction occurs by longitudinal cell division. The most characteristic genus
isEuglena, common in ponds and pools, especially when the water has been
polluted by runoff from fields or lawns on which fertilizers have been used.

24. Phylum Pyrrophyta
(Dinoflagella)
 "fire plants
 considered to be most the most primitive of the eukaryotes.
 autotrophs possessing chloroplasts and half are non-photosynthesising
heterotrophs.
 possess two flagella, one (the transverse flagellum) may be contained in a
groove-like structure around the equator of the organism (the cingulum),
providing forward motion and spin to the dinoflagellate, the other (the
longitudinal flagellum) trailing behind providing little propulsive force, mainly
acting as a rudder.
 is the wall composition and structure; early classification of the dinoflagellates
was based on the presence (termed armoured) or absence (termed
unarmoured) of a rigid outer cell covering (or theca).

25. SUBKINGDOM
MYXOBONTA
FUNGUS – LIKE PROTISTS

26. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FUNGI – LIKE
PROTISTS
 The Fungus-like protists are heterotrophs that absorb
nutrients from dead or decaying matter.
 They play a key role in recycling organic material.
 The difference between them and true fungi is that
unlike fungi they have centrioles, but lack the chitin of
fungal cell walls.

27. Acellular slime molds (Phylum Myxomycota)
(Phylum Myxomycota)
Acellular slime molds
 they produce spores that are borne in sporangia, a characteristic
common to some taxa of fungi. However, the assimilative stage in slime
molds is morphologically similar to that of an amoeba.
 the assimilative stage in slime molds is morphologically similar to that of
an amoeba. This assimilative stage has been designated a myxamoeba
 The myxamoeba, as is the case of the amoeba, is a uninucleate, haploid
cell which is not enclosed in a rigid cell wall, and ingests its food by
means of phagocytosis.
 During this mode of ingestion, the food particles, usually bacteria,
beceome surrounded by the pseudopodia of the myxamoeba.

28. (Phylum Acrasiomycota)
Cellular slime molds
 Heterotrophic by ingestion (engulf organic material &
bacteria).
 They produce & release spores when conditions are
unfavorable to growth.
 Look like amoeboid protozoans during their
vegetative state
 Produce motile spores when conditions are
unfavorable to growth.
 Example : Dictyostelium

29. (Phylum Oomycota)
Water molds
 Usually live in the water, where they parasitize
fishes, some species parasitize land plants & insects.
 Have a filamentous body as do fungi.
 Cell walls are composed of cellulose
 Most are saprotrophs or parasite on algae or simple
animals that live in lakes, streams and other bodies
of water.
 Example : Saprolegnia

30. GENERAL REFERENCES
 Campbell, Niel., Biology 8th Edition. Menlo Park, Calif.:Benjamin/Cumming
Publishing Co.,2008.
 Mauseth, James D., Botany : An Introduction to Plant Biology 3rd Edition.
Jones & Barrlett Publisher., 2003
 Miller, S.A and Harley, J.P. Zoology 5th edition . Dubuque, Lowa: Win. C.
Brown Publishers, 2001.
 Muller, Walter H. Botany : a Functional Approach. Macmillian Publishing
Co., Inc. New York 1979.
 UPSEC, Plants of the Philippines. Manila, Philippines.1980

31. GENERAL REFERENCES
 Solomon., et al. Biology 7th Edition. Australia. Brooks/Cole,. Thomson
Learning. 2006.
 Starr Cecie, and Ralph Taggart. Biology the Unity and Diversity of life.
Australia. Brooks/Cole,. Thomson Learning. 2004.
 Storer, et al,. General Zoology 6th Edition. New York . McGraw-
Hill Companies, Inc., 1979.
 T. Elliot Weier., et al., Botany 6th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, California.
1982.

32. THANK YOU