Survey of the Protists

Life, in any form, without iron is in all likelihood impossible (see Summary and Conclusions). Iron compounds can be expected to be encountered in all species from anaerobic bacteria to man. Accordingly, a comprehensive survey of the naturally occurring iron compounds must necessitate examination of the three broad kingdoms of living species, viz., microorganisms (protists), plants and animals. 

Thus historic knowledge of protist distribution patterns, from the early nineteenth century to the recent molecular low-throughput surveys, was therefore largely limited to the biogeography of relatively abundant taxa. Next generation sequencing approaches enable consistent detection of many more rare taxa than earlier molecular methods, and perhaps the detection of particularly rare taxa which were previously completely unknown. 

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