HWN Suggests

The problem of protists

The phylogenetic tree of life has evolved along with our knowledge of biology and has changed quite a bit recently, as genetic data has been added to the descriptive work of zoologists, but the branch labeled "protists" has been especially problematic. What is a protist, exactly? The answer seems to be, "everything that is not obviously something else."

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Articles of Interest

Driven by curiosity: Filling in the gaps of the protist puzzle

We hear a lot about the complexity of life but I’m really interested in where these systems have come from. I think there is still so much to be uncovered and so many puzzles to solve within this area, which keeps me engaged and pushing forward in my research.

Emerging Parasitic Protists: The Case of Perkinsea

The last century has witnessed an increasing rate of new disease emergence across the world leading to permanent loss of biodiversity. Perkinsea is a microeukaryotic parasitic phylum composed of four main lineages of parasitic protists with broad host ranges.

First things first: so what are protists anyway?

So I hope this clears up a bit on at least why there's a total cluster... regarding the term 'protist'. To make things better, we don't have a total consensus on a definition of 'protist' even in the field. I use the word differently from other people here. Some people exclude microbial (large) things, some exclude green and red algae as well, etc.

In a Single-Cell Predator, Clues to the Animal Kingdom’s Birth

The Environmental Protection Agency is worried about a lot of things in our water — polychlorinated biphenyls, dibromochloropropane, Cryptosporidium parvum — to name just a few of the dozens of chemicals or organisms they monitor. However, in nearly every creek and lake, and throughout the oceans, there is one important group of multisyllabic microbes that the E.P.A. does not track, and until recently, most biologists heard and knew very little about — the choanoflagellates.

Interactions between soil protists and pollutants: An unsolved puzzle

Soil protists are essential but often overlooked in soils, although they play crucial functional roles in the terrestrial ecosystem. While soil protists have drawn increased attention to their functional role in soils, their interaction with soil pollutants remains unresolved.

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Our understanding of the composition and activities of microbial communities from diverse habitats on our planet has improved enormously during the past decade, spurred on largely by advances in molecular biology. Much of this research has focused on the bacteria, and to a lesser extent on the archaea and viruses, because of the relative ease with which these assemblages can be analyzed and studied genetically. In contrast, single-celled, eukaryotic microbes (the protists) have received much less attention, to the point where one might question if they have somehow been demoted from the position of environmentally important taxa.

Protists of the Atlantic

This is a mixture of single-celled protists – diatoms, dinoflagellates, radiolarians, and foraminifera.

Protists, the overseen guardians of soil microbiome function

Soil microbes provide essential functions supporting soil fertility and plant health. Recent advances in sequencing technologies have favored a boom in studies investigating soil microbiome diversity and function. However, to date most studies have focused on bacteria and fungi, neglecting other trophic levels.

The global-scale distributions of soil protists and their contributions to belowground systems

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Coral reef ecosystems are rapidly declining due to numerous local and global pressures such as climate change and pollution. In response to the coral reef crisis,

The Skin of the Earth Is Home to Pac-Man-Like Protists

Pac-Man, the open-mouthed face of the most successful arcade game ever, is much more well-known than any of the one-celled organisms called protists, at least among people over 30. But the first study to characterize protists in soils from around the world—co-authored by Smithsonian scientists—found that the most common groups of soil protists behave exactly like Pac-Man: moving through the soil matrix, gobbling up bacteria. Their results are published in Science Advances.

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What are protists?

Protists are a diverse collection of organisms that do not fit into animal, plant, bacteria or fungi groups. While exceptions exist, they are primarily microscopic and made up of a single cell (unicellular)...

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Small Things Considered

The purpose of this blog is to share our appreciation for the width and depth of the microbial activities on this planet. Our emphasis is on the unusual and the unexpected phenomena for which we have a special fascination.