Question

Define autotrophic nutrition.

Answer 1

Hint: Nutrition is the process of obtaining the food that is important for health and the growth. Nutrition means eating a healthy and balanced diet that provides you energy. Taking food and using it for growth, metabolism and repair. Various stages of nutrition are ingestion,digestion,absorption,transport,assimilation and excretion.

Complete Answer:
- There are two main types of nutrition that are autotrophic and heterotrophic. The term autotrophic is termed as auto means self and trophic means nutrition.
- Autotrophic nutrition is a process in which an organism prepares its own food from simple inorganic material like water, mineral salts and carbon dioxide in the presence of sunlight.
- Each autotrophic organism has pigment called chlorophyll which helps them to synthesize their own food by the process of photosynthesis which results in the formation of glucose.
- The examples of autotrophs are plants and blue green algae.
- In the process of photosynthesis the plants prepare their own food and are called as autotrophs. The plants have chloroplast which possesses chlorophyll and the glucose is synthesized with the help of water and carbon dioxide in the presence of sunlight.
- The synthesized food is then transported to different parts of the plant for storage and utilization.
- Carbon dioxide, water, sunlight and chlorophyll are the important things that are required for autotrophic nutrition.

Note: The autotrophs produce their own food by the process of the photosynthesis. The autotrophs are called primary producers. They form the base of an ecosystem and act as a source of energy for next trophic levels.