Holozoic nutrition at Higher Level: The same statement as SL. HL questions ask you to identify holozoic nutrition from a description and to set out its stages in order.
Practise this as you read
- Identify holozoic nutrition.
- Outline ingestion, digestion, absorption and assimilation.
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The big idea: All animals are heterotrophs. In holozoic nutrition they take food into the body and digest it inside.
The points to remember
- Ingestion: food is taken into the gut.
- Digestion: enzymes break large molecules into small ones, inside the body.
- Absorption: small molecules pass into the blood.
- Assimilation: cells use them to build molecules and release energy.
- Egestion: undigested food leaves the body.
Remember it as: In, break down, take up, use, out.
Real example: the barn owl. A barn owl swallows small mammals whole and digests the soft tissue inside its gut; it later coughs up pellets of the bones and fur it cannot digest.
Trap: Holozoic digestion is internal. Fungi digest food outside their bodies: that is saprotrophic nutrition, not holozoic.
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How it is asked: Expect a description of feeding to classify, or the stages of holozoic nutrition in order.
IB-style questionOutline[4 marks]
Outline the stages of holozoic nutrition in an animal.
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