Towards an estimate of the diversity of eukaryotic protists

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Maintaining biodiversity is an important issue, because living beings, and especially eukaryotic protists, play essential roles in the biosphere. The disappearance of certain groups could therefore have significant impacts on the functioning of the carbon, nitrogen, etc. cycles. Simply estimating this diversity of microbes is already a challenge. Indeed, many factors: small size, difficulty of harvesting or cultivation, similarity of forms and trophic strategies, etc., limit our knowledge. This is already apparent when it comes to defining the unity of diversity: the species.


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