Heterotrophic nutrition

Abstract

Heterotrophic organisms are unable to manufacture their own food and must obtain it in organic form from their environment, by means of holozoic, saprophytic or parasitic nutrition. Holozoic nutrition is shown by the majority of animals and involves the eating of other animals and plants. Saprophytes include many fungi and bacteria which absorb their nutriment from the dead and decaying bodies ofother organisms or from some other source of organic material such as human foods like jam or bread. Some animals and plants are parasites, feeding directly on the living tissues of other organisms.