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17: Diversity of Microbes, Fungi, and Protists

  • Page ID
    50415
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    • 17.1: Prokaryotic Diversity
    • 17.2: Eukaryotic Origins
      The origin of eukaryotic cells was largely a mystery until a revolutionary hypothesis was comprehensively examined in the 1960s by Lynn Margulis. The endosymbiotic theory states that eukaryotes are a product of one prokaryotic cell engulfing another, one living within another, and evolving together over time until the separate cells were no longer recognizable as such. This once-revolutionary hypothesis had immediate persuasiveness and is now widely accepted.
    • 17.3: Protists
    • 17.4: Fungi
    • 17.5: Viruses
      Viruses are acellular, parasitic entities that are not classified within any domain because they are not considered alive. They have no plasma membrane, internal organelles, or metabolic processes, and they do not divide. Instead, they infect a host cell and use the host’s replication processes to produce progeny virus particles. Viruses infect all forms of organisms including bacteria, archaea, fungi, plants, and animals.
    • 17.E: Diversity of Microbes, Fungi, and Protists (Exercises)


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