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Protists have an accentuated tendency to include endosymbionts in their cells, and these have produced new physiological opportunities. Some associations are more permanent, such as Paramecium bursaria and its endosymbiont Chlorella; others more transient. Many protists contain captured chloroplasts, chloroplast-mitochondrial complexes, and ...
Unlike plants, fungi and most types of algae, most protozoa do not have a rigid external cell wall but are usually enveloped by elastic structures of membranes that permit movement of the cell. In some protozoa, such as the ciliates and euglenozoans , the outer membrane of the cell is supported by a cytoskeletal infrastructure, which may be ...
Many protists have protective shells or tests, [139] usually made from calcium carbonate (chalk) or silica (glass). Protists are mostly single-celled and microscopic. Their shells are often tough mineralised forms that resist degradation, and can survive the death of the protist as a microfossil. Although protists are very small, they are ...
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).
The chloroplasts were presumably acquired by ingesting some green alga. [5] They are surrounded by four membranes, the outermost of which is continuous with the endoplasmic reticulum , and contain a small nucleomorph between the middle two, which is a remnant of the alga's nucleus.
The secondary cell wall, a thick layer formed inside the primary cell wall after the cell is fully grown. It is not found in all cell types. It is not found in all cell types. Some cells, such as the conducting cells in xylem , possess a secondary wall containing lignin , which strengthens and waterproofs the wall.
Excavates were formerly considered to be included in the now obsolete Protista kingdom. [6] They were distinguished from other lineages based on electron-microscopic information about how the cells are arranged (they have a distinctive ultrastructural identity). [4] They are considered to be a basal flagellate lineage. [7]
The genus contains the smallest known free-living eukaryotic species, with an average size of 0.8 μm. [1] The ultrastructure of cells in this genus have so far been characterised by remarkable simplicity, being coccoid cells lacking a cell wall and containing a single chloroplast, a single mitochondrion, and a single Golgi body as well as its nucleus. [1]