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Welcome toWikiProject Protista! This is a collaboration group created to improve Wikipedia's coverage and organization of information about the eukaryotic organisms known asprotists orprotoctists, from which all other eukaryotes have evolved:plants,fungi andanimals.

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, pleaseadd yourself as a participant in the project, inquire on thetalk page, and take on an open task from theto-do list. You can also add a task where work is needed on protist articles.

ThisWikiProject aims primarily to describe all protists, that is, all species ofeukaryotes that are neitherplants,animals orfungi, historically considered part of a kingdomProtista. This project's scope also includes the science ofprotistology, the biographies of protistologists, and theevolution of eukaryotes. The project provides a central location for all participants interested. Our concrete goals are:

1. Create and maintain articles about alltaxa (clades, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, species...) that include protists, up to anencyclopedic standard.
2. Create and maintain the correspondingautomatic taxonomy templates.
3. Maintain thetaxonomy 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. MaintainCategory:Protists and its subcategories, as well asCategory:Eukaryotes except for fungi, animals, or plants.

This WikiProject is an offshoot ofWikiProject 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 asslime molds andwater 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 onarthropods 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 andespecially 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.

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This userparticipates in WikiProject Protista.

Protista articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	Total
FM					2	2
GA	3	7	5	7		22
B	4	2	6	13		25
C	8	26	59	201		294
Start	6	26	66	516		614
Stub		7	45	1,547		1,599
List	1			9		10
Category					330	330
Disambig					3	3
Project					3	3
Redirect				5	243	248
Template					354	354
NA					1	1
Other	1				1	2
Assessed	23	68	181	2,298	937	3,507
Total	23	68	181	2,298	937	3,507
WikiWork factors (?)		ω =13,926			Ω = 5.47

The following articles within the scope of this project have been rated and reviewed asGood Articles orFeatured Articles.

Barbeyella minutissima •Cafileria •Chrompodellid •Diaphoretickes •Eukaryote •Holozoa •Hyalospheniidae •Katablepharid •Myxogastria •Nucleariid •Ochrophyte •Parvilucifera •Plasmodium knowlesi •Plasmodium •Postelsia •Rapaza •Slime mold •Stramenopile •Syssomonas •Telonemia •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 allprotozoa, while the ICNafp regulatedalgae and fungus-like protists such asslime 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:TaxonAuthor, Year. For example, anew combination (i.e. a species transferred to a new genus) would be written as:

Urceolus cyclostomus(Stein, 1878) Mereschkowsky, 1877

basionym:Phialonema cyclostomumStein, 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 hagenowiiRatzeburg, 1852

Dinema polybulbon(Sw.) Lindl.

basionym:Epidendrum polybulbonSw.

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 itsgeographical 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 aBiology 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. Acladogram depicting the phylogeny of the organism can be helpful. Ideally it includes thefossil record and the evolution ofcharacters 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 taxonmonotypic?

1. Yes. Is the taxon agenus with only onespecies?
   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 notOrcadia (protist).
      2. No. The article should be named after the genus, even if higher ranks are also monotypic. Example:Olisthodiscus (genus) notOlisthodiscophyceae (class).
   2. No (this would be afamily with only onegenus, or anorder with only one family, or aclass 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 differentsynonyms, 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 aninformal 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 intoredirects 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 cladesAmorphea,Opisthokonta (both containing animal and fungal taxa) andDiaphoretickes (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 asAmorphea) are diffused into protist-only clades, with non-protists excluded (e.g.,Amoebozoa,Apusomonad,Ichthyosporea,Choanoflagellate...).

Taking inspiration fromWikiProject 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 asExcavata andHacrobia) are generally discouraged due to their instability across time. One exception is the paraphyleticCategory: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 fromWikiProject Fungi, which was the first to maintain species categories. In this project, protist and eukaryote species categories arediffused according to their article abundance.^[a]

• For example,Category:Ochrophyte species groups all ochrophyte species except for diatoms and brown algae, which are diffused into their own categoriesCategory:Diatom species andCategory: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 intoCategory:Ciliate species,Category:Apicomplexa species andCategory: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.

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