In some biological
taxonomy schemes,
protists were a large group of diverse
eukaryotic, mainly unicellular
microorganisms, that do not form
tissues. Formerly, these were assigned to the now-obsolete
kingdom Protista. However, in modern
taxonomy the Protista are understood to be
paraphyletic (not a
clade), so the term remains in use only for convenience, similar to "
invertebrate". An equivalent term
Protoctista is used for these organisms by various organisations and institutions. Molecular analyses in modern
taxonomy have been used to redistribute former members of this group into diverse and sometimes distantly related
phyla. When used, the term “protists” is now considered to mean similar-appearing but diverse phyla that are not related through an exclusive common ancestor, and which have different
life cycles,
trophic levels,
modes of locomotion, and cellular structures. Besides their relatively simple levels of organization, the protists do not have much in common.