Relationships between aquatic protists and humans

Protists exhibit a tremendously wide variety of lifestyles and metabolic functions. Considering predicted shortages of natural resources and foods in the near future, much more attention has to be paid to these potentialities of protists from applied and industrial points of view. We provide a general overview of their potentialities, some of which have already been industrialized. On the other hand, our health and economics have long been damaged by other potentialities of protists such as harmful algal blooms and paralytic shellfish poisoning . We have been intensively searching for effective countermeasures to avoid or reduce these detrimental impacts. Wise use of protistan beneficial potentialities is a key issue to respond adequately to rapidly and drastically ongoing changes of global environments. In addition we have to exactly consider what is now happening to the protistan communities due to anthropogenic impact s.