(a) Describe the process of nutrition in Draw labelled diagrams to show the various steps in the nutrition in Amoeba.
(b) What is the mode of nutrition in Amoeba known as?
(c) What is the process of obtaining food by Amoeba called? What does it mean?
(a) Nutrition in amoeba: Nutrition in amoeba involves the following steps
(i) Ingestion - Amoeba has no mouth for ingestion of food. It ingests the food by using its pseudopodia. The food is engulfed with little water to form a food vacuole.
(ii) Digestion - The food is digested by digestive enzymes present in the cytoplasm which breaks the food into small soluble molecules by chemical reactions.
(iii) Absorption - The digested food is absorbed directly into the cytoplasm by diffusion. The digested food spreads out from the food vacuole into the whole cell and after absorption the food vacuole disappears.
(iv) Assimilation - Food is used to obtain energy through respiration and the remaining part of the food is used for growth.
(v) Egestion - The undigested food collects inside the cell and the cell membrane ruptures. Through this, the undigested food is thrown out of the body.
(b) The mode of nutrition in amoeba is holozoic.
(c) The process of obtaining food is called phagocytosis, which means cell feeding.