10th Biology - Autotrophic Nutrition - New Syllabus

When we do activities such as breathing, working, walking, etc. we need energy. At the same time when we are not doing any apparent activity also, energy is needed to maintain the working of our body. Where does the energy comes to perform all these activities? The source of energy for these activities comes from the food which we eat.

You had studied in your previous classes about how different organisms get their food. Let us recall them.

• What are saprophytes?
• What are heterotrophs?
• What are autotrophs?
• How does our body perform different functions?
• Where does
How do plants obtain food materials? What do they do with simple substances present in nature?

I . Autotrophic Nutrition

We know that autotrophs are the organisms capable of using light energy to synthesize chemical compounds. They acquire nutrients like some minerals and water from the soil as well as some gases from the air. They are capable of producing large compounds like carbohydrates, proteins, lipids etc. from these very simple substances. These
carbohydrates produced by plants are utilized for providing energy in most living organisms and all animals including human beings.

Everything we eat comes from plants why don’t the plants get used up? What are they using to grow and produce more plants, more seeds? Scientists have been working for centuries to find out how plants carry out their life processes. We know that among all life processes, the process of photosynthesis makes plants the universal food provider for all living organisms.

You had studied somthing about photosynthesis in your earlier classes. Van Helmant and other scientists believed that platns gets food material not only from soil other factors are also there. What do you think are some raw materials needed for photosynthesis?

What could be the end products of the process of photosynthesis? Let us study the process of photosynthesis in detail to find out more about this.

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