. General characteristics

-Protoctista is single cell eukaryotic organisms

-They carryout aerobic respiration

-Some have chloroplast while some do not have

-The morphology of organisms in this kingdom varies, ranging from unicellular, filamentous, colonial, to multicellular form

-There are divided into 3 sub-kingdom

PROTECTISTA

                    ALGAE              PROTOZOA             OOMYCOTA

                    Plant-like                     animal-like               fungi-like

1. Sub kingdom ALGAE

General characteristics

• They have a simple vegetative plant like body which is called thalliod which is not differentiate into stem root and leaves
• They posses chlorophyll, therefore they can carry out photosynthesis
• Their cell wall is made up of cellulose
• There are mainly aquatic or could be attached to tree strum
• The body algae is made up of true parenchymolous tissue
• They reproduce asexually by binary fission, fragmentation or by spore formation
• Some can also reproduce sexually by the fusion of gametes to form a zygote

PHYLUM CHLOROPHYTA

• Here the dominant photosynthetic pigment are chlorophyll a and b, the other photosynthetic pigment e.g. xanthophylls are present in very small quantities
• The food reserve stored in starch
• They are characterize by a cellulose cell wall
• They are mostly fresh water organism
• They could be unicellular or thalloid, the unicellular forms are filamentous or colonial
• Some posses locomotive organelles, therefore they are motile while other are non-motile
• They reproduce asexually by mitosis cell division, by fragmentation or spore formation, they can also reproduce sexually by the fusion of similar gametes, this fusion is called isogamy and the dissimilar gametes is anisogamy

The representive of this Phylum include: Class chlorophyceae: non-motile spirogyra filamentous and motile chlamydomonos unicellular.