Ecomare

Protists are microscopically small organisms. They are usually one-celled. They can also be multicelled, but then they have no specialized tissues. This is what makes a protist different from other eukaryotes. Organisms made up of cells enclosed by a membrane are eukaryotes. Viruses are not eukaryotes. Noctiluca scintillans, the organism which causes the sea to light up in the summer, is an example of a protist. Sometimes, biologists categorize all seaweeds and algae as protists because their manner of reproducing is different than by plants. Another example of a protist is Labyrinthula zosterae. This organism may be one of the reasons why the eelgrass disappeared in the northern and western part of the Wadden Sea in the 1930s.