The protists are a diverse group of eucaryotic organisms, including the algae, fungi, and protozoa, united by their intermediate level of organization between the procaryotes (bacteria and blue-green algae) and the more highly organized groups of plants and animals. Protists are commonly used as experimental organisms in laboratory studies of cell biology. Understanding the evolutionary relationships among protists groups has been impeded by the fact that algae, fungi, and protozoans are studied by separate communities of investigators. During the past few years, however, several Task Forces have been organized to study the similarities and differences across the three groups, and to establish standard nomenclature for structures that are shared by them. This careful study should allow investigators to separate similarities that are due to common ancestry (homologies) from similarities due to common function (analogies). The first such effort to be completed is the Task Force on the Flagellar Apparatus and the Cytoskeleton. The results will be presented at the 8th meeting of the International Society of Evolutionary Protistology, in College Park, Maryland. The proposed Task Force meeting and its associated proceedings volume will have wide impact. This synthesis will open new discussions between cell biologists, evolutionary biologists, and systematists working of algae, fungi, and protozoans. These findings will help to clear the path leading to a better understanding of the ancient diversification of higher organisms.
