section_path: Diversity/Eukaryotes
section_name: Eukaryotes
paragraph_text: Eukaryotes
  
  Eukaryotes are hypothesized to have split from archaea, which was followed by their endosymbioses with bacteria (or symbiogenesis) that gave rise to mitochondria and chloroplasts, both of which are now part of modern-day eukaryotic cells. The major lineages of eukaryotes diversified in the Precambrian about 1.5 billion years ago and can be classified into eight major clades: alveolates, excavates, stramenopiles, plants, rhizarians, amoebozoans, fungi, and animals. Five of these clades are collectively known as protists, which are mostly microscopic eukaryotic organisms that are not plants, fungi, or animals. While it is likely that protists share a common ancestor (the last eukaryotic common ancestor), protists by themselves do not constitute a separate clade as some protists may be more closely related to plants, fungi, or animals than they are to other protists. Like groupings such as algae, invertebrates, or protozoans, the protist grouping is not a formal taxonomic group but is used for convenience. Most protists are unicellular; these are called microbial eukaryotes.
  
  Plants are mainly multicellular organisms, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae, which would exclude fungi and some algae. Plant cells were derived by endosymbiosis of a cyanobacterium into an early eukaryote about one billion years ago, which gave rise to chloroplasts. The first several clades that emerged following primary endosymbiosis were aquatic and most of the aquatic photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms are collectively described as algae, which is a term of convenience as not all algae are closely related. Algae comprise several distinct clades such as glaucophytes, which are microscopic freshwater algae that may have resembled in form to the early unicellular ancestor of Plantae. Unlike glaucophytes, the other algal clades such as red and green algae are multicellular. Green algae comprise three major clades: chlorophytes, coleochaetophytes, and stoneworts.
  
  Fungi are eukaryotes that digest foods outside their bodies, secreting digestive enzymes that break down large food molecules before absorbing them through their cell membranes. Many fungi are also saprobes, feeding on dead organic matter, making them important decomposers in ecological systems.
  
  Animals are multicellular eukaryotes. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and grow from a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described —of which around 1 million are insects —but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. They have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs.