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Animals require complex nutrients such as carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, obtaining them by consuming other organisms. Humans have developed agriculture and cooking to replace foraging and advance human nutrition. Plants acquire nutrients through the soil and the atmosphere.
Many plants and animals have coevolved in such a way that the fruit is a good source of nutrition for the animal, who then excretes the seeds some distance away, allowing greater dispersal. [59] Even seed predation can be mutually beneficial, as some seeds can survive the digestion process.
Proteins are the basis of many animal body structures (e.g. muscles, skin, and hair). They also form the enzymes which control chemical reactions throughout the body. Each molecule is composed of amino acids which are characterized by the inclusion of nitrogen and sometimes sulfur. The body requires amino acids to produce new proteins (protein ...
Trophic levels can be represented by numbers, starting at level 1 with plants. Further trophic levels are numbered subsequently according to how far the organism is along the food chain. Level 1 Plants and algae make their own food and are called producers. Level 2 Herbivores eat plants and are called primary consumers. Level 3
Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter, and detritivores eat detritus. Fungi digest organic matter outside their bodies as opposed to animals that digest their food inside their bodies.
An Australian painted lady (Vanessa kershawi) feeding on nectar through its long proboscis. In zoology, a nectarivore is an animal which derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of the sugar-rich nectar produced by flowering plants.
A heterotroph (/ ˈ h ɛ t ər ə ˌ t r oʊ f,-ˌ t r ɒ f /; [1] [2] from Ancient Greek ἕτερος (héteros) 'other' and τροφή (trophḗ) 'nutrition') is an organism that cannot produce its own food, instead taking nutrition from other sources of organic carbon, mainly plant or animal matter. In the food chain, heterotrophs are ...
Ascorbic acid is essential to humans and some animal species but most other animals and many plants are able to synthesize it. Nutrients may be organic or inorganic: organic compounds include most compounds containing carbon, while all other chemicals are inorganic.