Progress in understanding the phylogeny of flagellates

Heterotrophic free-living flagellates appear to provide the ancestry for all other eukaryote groups. Not only are the oldest surviving anaerobic eukaryotes flagellated protists, but also there appear to be survivors of a lineage of flagellate forms which could have been close to the sources of the main branches of eukaryote evolution. These 'stem' forms of flagellates developed more complex flagellation with anchoring fibres which became the main components of the cytoskeleton and supported the cytostome; by their phagotrophic activities these flagellates established symbiotic relationships, first with aerobic bacteria to form mitochondria, and later with various forms of prokaryotic and eukaryotic algal cells to form chloroplasts of a variety of types having different pigments, different structure and different food storage patterns. The specific patterns of flagellation, cytoskeleton, cytostome, secreted surface structures and cell aggregation into colonies enable groups of organisms to be recognised, whose most primitive survivors in almost all cases are heterotrophic flagellates. The current view of the phylogeny of eukaryotes suggests that heterotrophic flagellates have provided the origins of all major eukaryote groups, and that the phylogeny of these flagellates is the key to understanding the evolution of all eukaryotes. We anticipate that further rRNA analyses, supported by ultrastructural data, will confirm the central role played by these flagellates in eukaryote evolution.