L3 Animal-like Protists Flashcards
Protista
Kingdom Protista. They are a large group of unicellular (some multicellular in colonies) eukaryotic organisms that are not considered plants, animals or fungi.
Autotrophs
Generate their own food from the environment (sunlight = photosynthetic autotrophs) Also known as plant-like autotrophs which are called algae.
Heterotrophs
Collect their nutrition and food by ingestion or absorption of other organisms. Animal-like heterotrophic protists are called protozoa. Fungi-like heterotrophs (saprotrophs) feed on decaying organic matter via absorption.
Mixotrophs
Protists that ingest food but also photosynthesize. Euglena is a good example. Capable of photosynthesis but Euglena needs vitamin B through ingestion of bacteria.
Supergroups
Excavata, Amoebazoa, Rhizaria, Chromalveolata, Choanoflagellates
Excavata
- mixotrophs (euglena)
- parasitic & human diseases (malaria - plasmodium, gardiasis - gardia, african sleeping sickness - trypanosomes)
- lack mitochondria but have a flagella
- some species are multicellular (slime mould)
Amoebozoa
-pseudopoda for movement (the ectoplasm initiates the movement and the pseudopodia shoot out and anchor to substrate, the rest of the cytoplasm pulls towards the pseudopodia = movement)
Rhizaria
- crazy looking with lots of flagellum
- move like amoebozoa (pseudopodia)
Chromalveolata
- can be multicellular
- diatoms allow us to breathe through their maintenance of the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. also used as predictors for the atmospheric conditions in the past
- oomycetes caused potato blight in the 1600s
Choanoflagellates
- zooflagellate is not in the super 6 but it should be because it is the closest protist relative to animals.
- unique morphology in the flagellum being surrounded with microvilli (densely packed)
- microvilli is used for filtering food and bacteria as the choanoflagellate travels through the water with the flagellum sending water up through the microvilli.