Life Processes

What you will learn

• Movement of various types can be taken as an indication of life.

• Maintenance of life requires processes like nutrition, respiration, transport of materials within the body and excretion of waste products.

• Autotrophic nutrition involves the intake of simple inorganic materials from the environment and using an external energy source like the Sun to synthesise complex high-energy organic material.

• Heterotrophic nutrition involves the intake of complex material prepared by other organisms.

• In human beings, the food eaten is broken down by various steps along the alimentary canal and the digested food is absorbed in the small intestine to be sent to all cells in the body.

• During the process of respiration, organic compounds such as glucose are broken down to provide energy in the form of ATP. ATP is used to provide energy for other reactions in the cell.

• Respiration may be aerobic or anaerobic. Aerobic respiration makes more energy available to the organism.

• In human beings, the transport of materials such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, food and excretory products is a function of the circulatory system. The circulatory system consists of the heart, blood and blood vessels.

• In highly differentiated plants, transport of water, minerals, food and other materials is a function of the vascular tissue which consists of xylem and phloem.

• In human beings, excretory products in the form of soluble nitrogen compounds are removed by the nephrons in the kidneys.

• Plants use a variety of techniques to get rid of waste material. For example, waste material may be stored in the cell-vacuoles or as gum and resin, removed in the falling leaves, or excreted into the surrounding soil.