Eukaryote
Domain of life whose cells have nuclei / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about eukaryota?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
The eukaryotes (/juːˈkærioʊts, -əts/ yoo-KARR-ee-ohts, -əts)[5] constitute the domain of Eukarya or Eukaryota, organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms are eukaryotes. They constitute a major group of life forms alongside the two groups of prokaryotes: the Bacteria and the Archaea. Eukaryotes represent a small minority of the number of organisms, but given their generally much larger size, their collective global biomass is much larger than that of prokaryotes.
Eukaryota | |
---|---|
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978 |
Supergroups and kingdoms[1] | |
Synonyms | |
The eukaryotes seemingly emerged within the Asgard archaea, and are closely related to the Heimdallarchaeia.[6] This implies that there are only two domains of life, Bacteria and Archaea, with eukaryotes incorporated among the Archaea. Eukaryotes first emerged during the Paleoproterozoic, likely as flagellated cells. The leading evolutionary theory is they were created by symbiogenesis between an anaerobic Asgard archaean and an aerobic proteobacterium, which formed the mitochondria. A second episode of symbiogenesis with a cyanobacterium created the plants, with chloroplasts.
Eukaryotic cells contain membrane-bound organelles such as the nucleus, the endoplasmic reticulum, and the Golgi apparatus. Eukaryotes may be either unicellular or multicellular. In comparison, prokaryotes are typically unicellular. Unicellular eukaryotes are sometimes called protists. Eukaryotes can reproduce both asexually through mitosis and sexually through meiosis and gamete fusion (fertilization).