Kingdom protist characteristics

They are simple eukaryotic organisms.

Most of the organisms are unicellular, some are colonial and some are multicellular like algae.

Most of the protists live in water, some in moist soil or even the body of human and plants.

These organisms are eukaryotic, since they have a membrane bound nucleus and endomembrane systems.

They have mitochondria for cellular respiration and some have chloroplasts for photosynthesis.

Nuclei of protists contain multiple DNA strands, the number of nucleotides are significantly less than complex eukaryotes.

Movement is often by flagella or cilia.

Protists are multicellular organisms, they are not a plant, animal or fungus.

Respiration - cellular respiration is primarily aerobic process, but some living in mud below ponds or in digestive tracts of animals ares strict facultative anaerobes.

Nutrition - they can be both hetreotrophic or autotrophic.

Flagellates are filter feeding, some protists feed by the process of endocytosis (formation of food vacuole by engulfing a bacteria and extending their cell membrane).

Reproduction - some species have complex life cycle involving multiple organisms.

Example:

Plasmodium. Some reproduce sexually and others asexually.

They can reproduce by mitosis and some are capable of meiosis for sexual reproduction.

They form cysts in adverse conditions.

Some protists are pathogens of both animals and plants. Example: Plasmodium falciparum causes malaria in humans.

Protists are major component of plankton.

They are simple eukaryotic organisms