Introduction

Protistology is a scientific discipline devoted to the study of protists, a highly diverse group of eukaryotic organisms. All eukaryotes apart from animals, plants and fungi are considered protists. Its field of study therefore overlaps with the more traditional disciplines of phycology, mycology, and protozoology, just as protists embrace mostly unicellular organisms described as algae, some organisms regarded previously as primitive fungi, and protozoa ("animal" motile protists lacking chloroplasts).

They are a paraphyletic group with very diverse morphologies and lifestyles. Their sizes range from unicellular picoeukaryotes only a few micrometres in diameter to multicellular marine algae several metres long.

Protists

A protist is any eukaryotic organism (that is, an organism whose cells contain a cell nucleus) that is not an animal, plant, or fungus. While it is likely that protists share a common ancestor (the last eukaryotic common ancestor), the exclusion of other eukaryotes means that protists do not form a natural group, or clade. So some protists may be more closely related to animals, plants, or fungi than they are to other protists; however, like algae, invertebrates, or protozoans, the grouping is used for convenience. The study of protists is termed protistology.

At one time, simple organisms such as amoebas and single-celled algae were classified together in a single taxonomic category: the kingdom Protista. However, the emergence of better genetic information has since led to a clearer understanding of evolutionary relationships among different groups of protists, and this classification system was rendered defunct. Understanding protists and their evolutionary history continues to be a matter of scientific discovery and discussion.           

Protists gain nutrition in a number of ways. According to Simpson, protists can be photosynthetic or heterotrophs (organisms that seek outside sources of food in the form of organic material). In turn, heterotrophic protists fall into two categories: phagotrophs and osmotrophs. Phagotrophs use their cell body to surround and swallow up food, often other cells, while osmotrophs absorb nutrients from the surrounding environment. "Quite a few of the photosynthetic forms are also phagotrophic," Simpson told Live Science. "This is probably true of most 'algal' dinoflagellates for example. They have their own plastids, but will also happily eat other organisms." Such organisms are called mixotrophs, reflecting the mixed nature of their nutritional habits.

Most protists reproduce primarily through asexual mechanisms according to Simpson. This can include binary fission where a parent cell splits into two identical cells or multiple fission; where the parent cell gives rise to multiple identical cells. Simpson added that most protists probably also have some kind of sexual cycle; however, this is only well documented in some groups.

Protists are responsible for a variety of human diseases including malaria, sleeping sickness, amoebic dysentery and trichomoniasis. Malaria in humans is a devastating disease. It is caused by five species of the parasite Plasmodium, which are transmitted to humans by female Anopheles mosquitoes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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