<p>so in the barrons book, it says that the protist kingdom “has the widest variety or organisms”. However when i was doing a practice MC question, (“organisms that comprise the largest number of species…”) the answer was Insects.
can someone explain this?</p>
<p>bump bump^^^</p>
<p>well, it might mean which phyla is the most diverse, and that would be arthropoda, including insects…if that answers your question.
if the question was the most diverse kingdom, then it would be protista.
i guess it just depends on the wording of the question</p>
<p>I think you have a little bit of a mix-up; the protista KINGDOM has the most variety amongst all the kingdoms, whereas the insect SPECIES has the most variety amongst all the species.</p>
<p>They mean the species, not phylum. Insects are by far the most diverse species in the world.</p>
<p>People, people. Insects are not a “species.” Insects are a CLASS within the PHYLUM Arthropoda within the KINGDOM Animalia. Within the class Insecta there are numerous species—more species, in fact, than any other class within the animal kingdom.</p>
<p>It is now disputed whether there is such a thing as a protist “kingdom”; many taxonomists say not. In their view, this was just a category mistake by earlier generations of scientists who wanted to lump all one-celled organisms together into a distinct “kingdom” apart from animals or plants, when in fact some of these organisms are more plant-like (and in some cases can be placed squarely within various plant phyla), some are more animal-like (and in some cases can be placed in animal phyla), while some are arguably neither. To carry it a step further, the contemporary argument would be that the term “Protists” lumps together a lot of phylogenetically unrelated species into a single broad category that has no particular scientific significance, since some of its members are more closely related to certain animal species while others of its members are more closely related to certain plant species. Thus it’s a kind of nonsense category from a scientific perspective.</p>
<p>So which is more diverse, the animal phylum Insecta or the “kingdom” (or not) Protista? Well, I suppose it depends on which view you take. That would make any question of this kind a very bad question for an SAT subject test.</p>