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WikiProject Protista

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Template:Taxonomy/Diaphoretickes listed at Requested moves

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A requested move discussion has been initiated for Template:Taxonomy/Diaphoretickes to be moved to Template:Taxonomy/"Diaphoretickes". This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 21:43, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Sar supergroup listed at Requested moves

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A requested move discussion has been initiated for Sar supergroup to be moved to Sar (clade). This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 10:39, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Template:Taxonomy/Sar listed at Requested moves

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A requested move discussion has been initiated for Template:Taxonomy/Sar to be moved to Template:Taxonomy/SAR. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 14:44, 20 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Changes to the Category system

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Inspired by the categorization system at WP:PLANTS and the recent discussion on categorization at WP:PALEO, I am trying to update many protist categories to fit better standards. For instance:

  • I am preemptively diffusing certain specious taxon categories (such as Category:Amoebozoa taxa).
  • I am applying the WP:C2D policy to match the category names to the established namespaces (e.g., Stramenopile instead of Heterokont).
  • I am re-organizing the Category:Eukaryote taxa and Category:Protist taxa categories to match what they actually mean. For the latter, this means not including Category:Opisthokont taxa as a subcategory, as that implies that fungi and animals are protists. Consequently, I will be creating separate subcategories for all opisthokont branches except fungi and animals (choanoflagellates, ichthyosporeans, etc.).

P.S. I made the mistake of assuming that using common names as category names (e.g., Amoebozoan instead of Amoebozoa) is better over simply using the established namespace. I will get to reverting that soon. — Snoteleks (talk) 22:17, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another policy I'm applying is the deletion of categories that belong to obsolete taxa and their diffusion to widely recognized and stable taxa. I already did this for Excavata, and now I'm doing the same for Bikonta. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:01, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have written some of these policies into the main project article. Suggestions are welcome — Snoteleks (talk) 13:19, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Replacing Category:Choanoflagellatea with Category:Choanoflagellate orders as you did at Acanthoecida is not consistent with the WP:PLANTS categorization system. The WP:PLANTS standard is that categories for ranks should be applied in addition to categories that don't specify rank. Plantdrew (talk) 15:55, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Plantdrew Very sorry, I did not see your comment. You are absolutely right, I should have kept both categories. I'll see if I can fix that soon. — Snoteleks (talk) 13:07, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of TSAR from The Automated Taxobox System

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Let's remove TSAR from the automated taxobox system. TSAR isn't universally accepted. Jako96 (talk) 08:18, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. There is still no strong phylogenomic evidence for TSAR, it should not have been placed in the automatic taxobox system when it doesn't even have an article of its own. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:19, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. So should we go ahead and delete it now? Jako96 (talk) 12:50, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Give it at least a day, let's see if other editors comment here. If not, it can probably be deleted. — Snoteleks (talk) 13:08, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. By the way, what do you think about we add more about Chromista/Protozoa system to the wiki? Jako96 (talk) 13:10, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've had both articles on my edit wishlist for a while. Feel free to improve them — Snoteleks (talk) 13:26, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My impression was that it was quite well accepted. Is there anything new that particularly challenged the taxon (as opposed to individual studies that have some conflict)?. Either way, what sources should be used to support particular taxonomony templates? Good sources should decide this.  —  Jts1882 | talk  19:09, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See this revision. BTW many basal phylogram topologies are still phylogenomic hypotheses and should be considered like that (Diaphoretickes, TSAR, Haptista), i.e. the "non-mainstream" views should also be mentioned (NPOV). Petr Karel (talk) 07:33, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For starters, none of the ISOP's revisions to eukaryotic classification mention TSAR, and these revisions are known to only introduce highly supported clades, especially in later years. The only higher clades they continuously include are Diaphoretickes, Sar, Amorphea, and Obazoa. Another good metric is the support of these clades in phylogenomic analyses, which are widely regarded as more accurate as simpler phylogenetic ones; although one from 2019 does support TSAR, the rest do not (see the most recent 2025 one: doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.075). Like Petr Karel said, it's still unstable, with Telonemia often branching with Haptista instead of Sar, so even though I like the idea of it being real, I prefer being more cautious when using it in taxonomy templates. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:04, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The last ISOP classification was 2019, so it was probably limited to literature over seven years old (is another due?). The other impression I had is that the study focussing on Telonema recovered TSAR, while the other studies had different focus (Cryptista/Microheliella or Opimoda) and only discussed it in passing. Another issue is primary versus secondary sources. TSAR is covered in several secondary sources, although the authors included those in the TSAR primary sources. Is there a secondary source questioning TSAR? That would provide a more compelling reason or the change.  —  Jts1882 | talk  12:40, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was told recently that there is a new ISOP publication coming this year or maybe the next one. I do know of some secondary sources (e.g., doi:10.1016/j.semcdb.2021.12.004), but they refer to it mostly as a passing mention and do not actually discuss it. — Snoteleks (talk) 14:06, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with removing TSAR. There's no article for it, and the taxonomy template links to a section header that no longer exists. Plantdrew (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a non-peer-reviewed paper that proposed Glissandra in 2025 renamed TSAR to T-SAR and actually recovered it. But I still think we should delete TSAR from the automated taxobox system. Jako96 (talk) 12:47, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think let's remove TSAR from the taxobox. Jako96 (talk) 13:07, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I started another discussion: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Removal of TSAR from The Automated Taxobox System Jako96 (talk) 07:52, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inspired by the Glossary of lichen terms, I have spent the past couple of days drafting a Glossary of protistology. I have covered some of the basics and will continue working on it, but perhaps fellow editors may want to contribute as well. All help and suggestions are welcome, as always. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:59, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This list does not contain Glissandra

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So I created a new page, Glissandra. But this list does not include it. Why? Jako96 (talk) 18:38, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From the overview: For a given WP 1.0 Project, a logged in user can request a manual update of the ratings for that project. This is contrast to a scheduled update, which happens once per day. It's possible that it simply takes a while, just like updates from User:JL-Bot when updating recognized content. — Snoteleks (talk) 19:03, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I thought maybe I forgot something. Jako96 (talk) 19:10, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Updating navboxes of excavates

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I recently created these two navboxes, {{Discoba}} and {{Metamonada}}, in order to substitute the obsolete, poorly maintained, and completely uncited {{Excavata}}. I am currently in the process of updating all excavate articles with these two new navboxes (except for malawimonads and ancyromonads, which are already covered by {{Eukaryota}}). — Snoteleks (talk) 19:18, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've completed this task on the Discoba side. Moving onto the Metamonada articles. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:14, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's all the Metamonada articles converted. Now I'll update the {{Biology high taxon classification navs}} template to add the two new templates. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:47, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Picozoa listed at Requested moves

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A requested move discussion has been initiated for Picozoa to be moved to Picomonas. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 11:39, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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There is a discussion about moving Postgaardia to Symbiontida

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There is a discussion about moving Postgaardia to Symbiontida: Talk:Postgaardia#Renaming to Symbiontida Please discuss further. Jako96 (talk) 10:11, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Usage of the phylum Rigifilidea

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While exploring AlgaeBase, I saw this phylum Rigifilidea (https://www.algaebase.org/browse/taxonomy/#200385). I've thought about using it on the wiki, but then I saw that it included the superclass Hilomonadia, not the class Hilomonadea. Should it still be used (to include Hilomonadia and then Hilomonadea or to directly include Hilomonadea)? Jako96 (talk) 19:46, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a very bad idea to use the Zmitrovich et al. (2022) system, it is dangerously inconsistent with both nomenclature and circumscription of taxa. AlgaeBase itself is an unreliable source when it comes to higher eukaryote taxonomy precisely because they still maintain outdated classification systems such as Cavalier-Smith's ranked system, and Zmitrovich's is meant to be its substitute. None of their system is scientific consensus, they have nearly no external citations. — Snoteleks (talk) 19:34, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think I observed that in English Wikipedia, people add monotypic protist taxa if they can add it. That is why I added Rigifilidea. It can be removed. Jako96 (talk) 09:58, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Collodictyonidae listed at Requested moves

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A requested move discussion has been initiated for Collodictyonidae to be moved to Diphylleida. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 09:53, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Naming of Myxogastria

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I'm a bit of a beginner when it comes to protists, so apologies if this is a stupid question, but I've just noticed that the article for the slime mold class I am used to referring to as Myxomycetes is located at the far less commonly used name of Myxogastria and was wondering why. For comparison, a Google search for "myxogastria" returns only about 24,100 results, compared to about 415,000 results for "myxomycetes", with similarly disparate Google Scholar results (1,070 and 19,400 respectively). Is there any particular reason the article is located at the less-used title? Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 08:38, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a stupid question, that is indeed the most widely used name. It is even referenced by papers that delve into myxomycete taxonomy as "the name used for this group of organisms in almost all literature" (doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-805089-7.00007-X). My guess is that it's a preferable name to some, since it does not make it seem like a fungus taxon and it has an even older history than the name Myxomycetes (the first distinction of these organisms began in a 1821 monograph where they were called Myxogastres). It is also the official name for them in the zoological code of nomenclature, Myxogastrea, where the botanical code continues using Myxomycetes (doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.399.3.5). I would prefer Myxomycetes, not just because it's the more widely used name, but also because using Myxogastria is confusing as it's not a taxonomically valid name, only Myxogastrea is (see previous doi), which is even more infrequent. Even using the common name, myxogastrid, would be better. — Snoteleks (talk) 13:26, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At one point, articles for plasmodial slime mold families and orders were using a mix of ICZN and ICNafp suffixes. I moved them so they were all at ICNafp names, which seem to be more widely used. I'd like to see Myxomycetes as the article title as well, but that wasn't a move I could make myself and I've never gotten around to requesting a move. 17:54, 28 June 2025 (UTC) Plantdrew (talk) 17:54, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I might take this into account and propose establishing a concrete WP:PROTISTA policy where we use ICZN names for only some specific ambiregnal protist taxa and ICNafp names for others (as far as titles and taxoboxes are concerned). It's something I've been considering for some time. It would go something like this:
  • Photosynthetic protists in general get the ICNafp treatment, including those that secondarily lost their photosynthetic ability, but excluding those for which there is no ICNafp equivalent (like Apicomplexa, Perkinsozoa, or some basal dinoflagellates, like Ellobiopsea).
  • Non-photosynthetic ones get the ICZN treatment, with the exception of fungus-like organisms (Eumycetozoa, Labyrinthulomycetes, etc.), unless, once again, there is no ICNafp equivalent (like with Amphitremida).
I think this would alleviate a lot of issues that come with the lack of consensus between the two codes when used in protists. Of course, if there is such consensus for some taxa, we should still use the commonly used name as per WP:COMMONNAME even if it goes against the taxon's nature.
Perhaps we could even make a list or a table of specific ambiregnal taxa for which we prioritize either ICNafp or ICZN suffixes. — Snoteleks (talk) 19:47, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is an excellent idea, it would certainly save future editors a lot of confusion. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 04:59, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers Snoteleks and Plantdrew. While I think it's clear that Myxomycetes is the WP:COMMONNAME for this class and that a change in article title wouldn't be too controversial, I am also seeing use of the word "myxomycete(s)" (uncapitalised) used in reference not strictly to the class concept but also as a general term for plasmodial slime moulds in which Ceratiomyxa is recognised as being placed in its own class separate from the rest of class Myxomycetes... My thinking is that a move to Myxomycetes per COMMONNAME would be fine here so long as we clarify in the body that "myxomycete(s)" (uncapitalised) can also refer to a grouping that includes Ceratiomyxa, but interested to hear your thoughts on this. The context behind my creating this discussion is that I just got my hands on Steven L. Stephenson's 2021 monograph Secretive Slime Moulds: Myxomycetes of Australia, which I noticed a. follows ICNafp nomenclature for the groups that it covers (Dictyosteliomycetes are excluded for practical reasons, given their microscopic size) and b. differs in higher classification from what we currently have onwiki (eg. characterising Eumycetozoa as a monophyletic phylum comprising classes Ceratiomycetes, Myxomycetes, and Dictyosteliomycetes). Stephenson follows the nomenclature of Lado (2005-2019) but the classification of Leontyev et al. (2019).
Currently it seems as though slime mould taxobox classification onwiki is an inconsistent mish mash of ICZN/ICNafp names and different classification systems. The higher classification of this & other slime mould groups seems to be quite mixed in both article bodies, titles, and taxoboxes. eg. Ceratiomyxa's taxobox seems to follow Lado, placing it (& the monogeneric Ceratiomyxidae) within class Protostelia, order Protosteliales, despite those two taxa being redirects to Protostelium, which states that they are both monotypic. Within the Myxogastria article, which describes this grouping as a class in the lead, the text and cladogram in the taxonomy and classification section self-contradict by referring to it as both a class and a higher clade in which classes Ceratiomyxomycetes (/Ceratiomycetes) and Myxomycetes are placed. The obvious solution to these contradictory pages would a top-down rework, but it's unclear to me if there is a single classification that has broad consensus among workers. Again, I'm still very new to protists, so please excuse my amateur understanding of the topic - your comments are very much appreciated :) Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 04:58, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that onwiki there are a lot of inconsistencies, but I have seen that it's more frequently fault of the wiki articles themselves being inaccurate, very outdated, abandoned, or supporting an uncommon taxonomic system. Protostelium is just one of many examples of taxa whose parent taxa redirect back to themselves or immediately to higher taxa despite not being monotypic; this is especially common in amoebozoans. This carelessness is also present in taxoboxes.
Unfortunately, due to being in this kind of limbo between ICZN and ICNafp, nomenclatural consensus of protists is harder to pinpoint, so it has to be fixed for each taxon individually depending on the particular consensus of the researchers that study it. What I usually do is first consult the Adl et al. (2019) publication for the preferred taxon name by the global protistological community, and then search deeper in the scientific literature in case there's something different; this is especially important for groups that have been better described after 2018.
In the case of Eumycetozoa, I followed amoebozoan-specific literature (like what is cited in the article), including the Leontyev et al. (2019) that you mentioned. I don't have access to the Stephenson 2021 monograph, so my latest knowledge is of these 2019 articles, which use either Dictyostelia or Dictyosteliomycetes. There seems to be a preference towards L.S.Olive's -ia suffixes, with Myxogastria, Protostelia and Dictyostelia, but frankly these endings don't make sense in ICZN (would be -ea) or ICNafp (would be -iomycetes); then again, very few authors seem to care about this, as everyone agrees the ranks below class must follow ICNafp.
There is never an easy, clearcut solution when it comes to protist nomenclature. It's always gonna be a compromise between the most accurate and the most widely used name, and it always needs the editor to delve deeper than usual to find the best solution. I didn't even know until now that the term 'myxomycetes' is also used as a more inclusive term that contains Ceratiomyxa. This makes a decision more difficult, as it makes me prefer Myxogastria.
Sorry if this is too much rambling, in summary I'm definitely down to tackling the onwiki inconsistencies via a top-down approach. — Snoteleks (talk) 14:33, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I put in some effort making taxonomy templates following Leontyev, but I never finished them all. Plantdrew (talk) 18:33, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life § Can't display some taxa's authorities. Jako96 (talk) 09:56, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Creation of SAR taxonomy template

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I think we should create another taxonomy template with the name SAR, and we should use this template as parent to other templates. I think the Sar template should only be used in the SAR supergroup page. The Eukaryote, Protist and Life pages already use the name SAR instead of Sar in their taxoboxes already. So, it would be more consistent. Jako96 (talk) 10:35, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Snoteleks What do you think? I'm asking you because you recently changed Sar with SAR in the Diaphoretickes taxobox. Jako96 (talk) 08:02, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree, I stand by what I said earlier: the taxonomy template of Sar should always be Sar because it is the formal taxonomic name. Mentions of Sar (or any other taxon) in the taxobox subdivisions of other taxa follow a completely different logic, which is using the most intuitive/familiar name (in this case, SAR). — Snoteleks (talk) 11:28, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. Jako96 (talk) 13:04, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]