Question

What is nutrition? Explain the process of nutrition in the Amoeba with help of a diagram.

Answer 1

Nutrition: The process of utilization of food by an organism to obtain energy for growth and development is know as nutrition.
Nutrition on Amoeba:

• Amoeba is a unicellular organism, which follows the holozoic mode of nutrition.
• The various processes involved in nutrition are ingestion, digestion, absorption, assimilation and egestion.
  
• Ingestion is the process by which the food is taken in by forming finger-like projections called pseudopodia (false feet) and the food is engulfed forming a vacuole.
• Digestion is the process wherein the food is broken down into simpler substances in the vacuole, with the help of digestive enzymes.
• Absorption is the process by which the digested food in the vacuole is absorbed into the cytoplasm by diffusion.
• Assimilation is the process that uses the absorbed food for metabolism, energy and reproduction.
• Egestion is the process where the undigested food is thrown out of the body with the help of vacuoles again.