Wikipedia:WikiProject Protista

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This is a WikiProject, an open group of Wikipedia editors. New participants are welcome; feel free to talk to us! Guide to WikiProjects Directory of WikiProjects

Shortcuts WP:PROTISTAWP:PROTISTA WP:PROTISTWP:PROTIST WP:PROTOZOAWP:PROTOZOA

Welcome to WikiProject Protista! This is a collaboration group created to improve Wikipedia's coverage and organization of information about the eukaryotic organisms known as protists or protoctists, from which all other eukaryotes have evolved: plants, fungi and animals.

This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources. It is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the topic. If you would like to help, please add yourself as a participant in the project, inquire on the talk page, and take on an open task from the to-do list. You can also add a task where work is needed on protist articles.

This WikiProject aims primarily to describe all protists, that is, all species of eukaryotes that are neither plants, animals or fungi,^[a] historically considered part of a kingdom Protista. This project's scope also includes the science of protistology, the biographies of protistologists, and the evolution of eukaryotes. The project provides a central location for all participants interested. Our concrete goals are:

1. Create and maintain articles about all taxa (clades, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, species...) that include protists, up to an encyclopedic standard.
2. Create and maintain the corresponding automatic taxonomy templates.
3. Maintain the taxonomy of protists as accurately as possible.
4. Provide accurate information about protist biology in both new articles and preexisting, more general articles that also pertain to other groups (e.g., flagellum, multicellular organism, symbiosis).
5. Maintain Category:Protists and its subcategories, as well as Category:Eukaryotes except for fungi, animals, or plants.

This WikiProject is an offshoot of WikiProject Tree of Life:

• WikiProject Science
  • WikiProject Biology
    • WikiProject Tree of Life
      • WikiProject Protista

In addition, WikiProject Microbiology focuses on bacteria and viruses, but also helps cover microscopic eukaryotes, especially pathogenic ones. WikiProject Algae is focused exclusively on photosynthetic bacteria and protists. WikiProject Fungi has helped maintain fungus-like protist articles, such as slime molds and water molds. WikiProject Palaeontology is focused on fossils, and as such helps cover extinct protists.

Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest, if you would like to join the project.

1. Snoteleks — Biologist, cladogram creator, phylogeny enthusiast. Protists are pretty much my special interest. 16:40, 22 October 2022 (UTC)reply
2. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] Happy to help where I can; I normally work on arthropods but I'd like to branch out. 14:37, 13 August 2023 (UTC)reply
3. Animalculum PostDoc working on evolution of metabolism and symbiosis in anaerobic protists, algae, and bacteria.
4. Fritzmann, usually work with plants but branching out to reach more of the Tree of Life
5. Cyanochic, I research cyanobacteria, diatoms, and endosymbiosis and microscopy is a main hobby of mine. Happy to branch out into other protists.
6. Jako96 I would work on any taxa.
7. IC1101-Capinatator, I’m mostly a general “extinct non-vertebrates” editor, but (alongside arthropods and especially chaetognaths) I have a soft spot for the pre-Ediacaran, which by necessity means I’ve written a fair few articles mostly containing or about protists.
8. DOTkamina, I never thought I'd be part of something. 不安になりますよね？I like organisms that are little known.
9. Alexeyevitch - I particularly like Mycetozoa, an extremely interesting, under-appreciated topic.

You may place {{User WikiProject Protista}} on your userpage to display the following userbox:

Protista articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FM					2		2
GA	4	9	5	8			26
B	3	4	6	15			28
C	16	20	56	213			305
Start	10	27	69	551		1	658
Stub	3	13	47	1,572			1,635
List	2		1	12			15
Category					347		347
Disambig					3		3
Project					3		3
Redirect			2	8	259		269
Template					2,041		2,041
NA					1		1
Other					5		5
Assessed	38	73	186	2,379	2,661	1	5,338
Total	38	73	186	2,379	2,661	1	5,338
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 14,456			Ω = 5.45

The following articles within the scope of this project have been rated and reviewed as Good Articles or Featured Articles.

Barbeyella minutissima • Cafileria • Chrompodellid • Diaphoretickes • Eukaryote • Holozoa • Hyalospheniidae • Katablepharid • Malaria • Myxogastria • Nucleariid • Ochrophyte • Parvilucifera • Plasmodium knowlesi • Plasmodium • Postelsia • Protist • Rapaza • Heinrichs Skuja • Slime mold • Stramenopile • Syssomonas • Telonemid • Triangulopteris • Urceolus • Vampyrellida

The two existing codes that regulate eukaryotic nomenclature (ICZN for zoology, ICNafp for botany) often come into conflict with protists. Historically, the ICZN was the authority for all protozoa, while the ICNafp regulated algae and fungus-like protists such as slime molds, but these too are frequently treated as protozoa, and some protozoa are occasionally treated as algae. Because these groups are evolutionarily intertwined, there is no solid barrier which firmly separates zoology from botany in the realm of protists. Instead, protistologists tend to implement their own 'code', where the authority is written the following way: Taxon Author, Year. For example, a new combination (i.e. a species transferred to a new genus) would be written as:

Urceolus cyclostomus (Stein, 1878) Mereschkowsky, 1877

basionym: Phialonema cyclostomum Stein, 1878

This differs from both the botanical code, which omits the year of publication, and the zoological code, which omits the authors of new combinations in favor of retaining only the author of the original species name, which becomes later a basionym. For example:

Aprostocetus hagenowii (Ratzeburg, 1852)

basionym: Entedon hagenowii Ratzeburg, 1852

Dinema polybulbon (Sw.) Lindl.

basionym: Epidendrum polybulbon Sw.

The default layout for new articles about a taxon is suggested as such:

Lead. A brief summary of all relevant information displayed in the article. Must contain an {{automatic taxobox}} (or {{speciesbox}} for species) with an image of the organism, its correct scientific name, its synonyms, and a map with its geographical range if possible.

Description. A section on what the organism looks like, its cellular structure and behavior at an individual level, its size, its unique characteristics. May include the various subgroups and their own characteristics that distinguish them from each other. If there is enough information, it can be changed for a Biology section where every single aspect of their biology is explained (e.g., cell structure, nutrition, reproduction, life cycle, biochemistry).

Ecology. A section on the organism and its relationship with the environment, the ecosystem that it inhabits, its geographical distribution, and pathogenicity in the case of parasites.

Systematics. A section on the taxonomic history of the organism: when and where the organism was discovered, by whom, how the scientific community responded since then, and how its classification changed over the years. Must include a summarized systematic classification of the inner groups. An etymology subsection is encouraged.

Evolution. A section on the evolutionary history of the group. A cladogram depicting the phylogeny of the organism can be helpful. Ideally it includes the fossil record and the evolution of characters within the group, as well as the evolutionary relationships to other groups.

If the name of an article is a taxon, there are several factors to consider which name should be applied. Below is a useful key to decide the naming of a taxon article, starting with the question: is the taxon monotypic?

1. Yes. Is the taxon a genus with only one species?
   1. Yes. Is the name of the protist genus shared with a genus from a different traditional kingdom (i.e. animal, plant, fungus, bacteria)?
      1. Yes. The article should be named after the species. Example: Orcadia riedeli not Orcadia (protist).
      2. No. The article should be named after the genus, even if higher ranks are also monotypic. Example: Olisthodiscus (genus) not Olisthodiscophyceae (class).
   2. No (this would be a family with only one genus, or an order with only one family, or a class with only one order, or so on and so forth, but without a monotypic genus). The article should be named after the most popular taxon rank used in scientific literature. Example: Vampyrellida (order) not Vampyrellidea (class).
2. No. Does the taxon have multiple different synonyms, none of which have been officially rejected?
   1. Yes. The article should be named after the most popular name in scientific literature. Example: Holomycota instead of Nucletmycea. This also applies if the most popular usage is an informal name (useful for taxa with many different formal names): ochrophyte instead of Ochrophyta or Ochrophytina, centrohelid instead of Centrohelea or Centroplasthelida, and so on.
   2. No. Apply the only known name, or the only officially accepted name.

All other possible names should be turned into redirects to the main article.

Due to the position of protists in the tree of life, this project is involved both in the categorization of protists and the categorization of eukaryotes in general. Consequently, there are two main taxonomic category trees maintained in parallel:

• Category:Eukaryote taxa, which includes the "higher" eukaryotes. The clades Amorphea, Opisthokonta (both containing animal and fungal taxa) and Diaphoretickes (containing plant taxa) are maintained due to their wider recognition and higher stability. Overloading the category tree with additional intermediate clades (e.g., Archaeplastida, Filozoa, Obazoa...) is discouraged.
• Category:Protist taxa, which excludes them. Large clades that include non-protists (such as Amorphea) are diffused into protist-only clades, with non-protists excluded (e.g., Amoebozoa, Apusomonad, Ichthyosporea, Choanoflagellate...).

Taking inspiration from WikiProject Plants' system of categorization, this project applies separate categories for all taxa (phyla, classes, orders, families, genera and species). Clades that do not have an assigned taxonomic rank (e.g., SAR supergroup) fall under the parent "taxa" category.

Non-monophyletic categories (such as Excavata and Hacrobia) are generally discouraged due to their instability across time. One exception is the paraphyletic Category:Green algae taxa, which excludes plants, and allows for easier cross-project categorization.

Species categories are among the most important, since they help quantify how many species are covered by Wikipedia. This project takes inspiration from WikiProject Fungi, which was the first to maintain species categories. In this project, protist and eukaryote species categories are diffused according to their taxonomic size.^[b]

• For example, Category:Ochrophyte species groups all ochrophyte species except for diatoms and brown algae, which are diffused into their own categories Category:Diatom species and Category:Brown algae species, given the large number of species in each.

Whenever possible, the resulting subcategories should be commonly recognizable.

• For example, Category:Alveolata species is diffused into Category:Ciliate species, Category:Apicomplexa species and Category:Dinoflagellate species, all of which are highly recognizable groupings, as opposed to 'Myzozoa' or 'Dinozoa'.

Higher taxon categories (e.g., Category:Eukaryote genera) should be consistent with the species-level category diffusion.