Nutrition In Amoeba

Nutrition in Amoeba is holozoic and it is omnivorous. The food consists of small microscopic plants and animals that float in water.

The nutrition in Amoeba takes place in the following steps :

• Ingestion or food capture : As there is no mouth in Amoeba , ingestion occurs at any point of the body and pseudopodia assist in engulfing the food. After engulfing the food, the tips of pseudopodia at the point of contact dissolve. As a result, the food gets encircled into the cell in a rounded structure called food vacuole . This process of obtaining food is called phagocytosis .
• Digestion : The food vacuoles act as temporary stomach for digestion. The enzymes secreted by the cell cytoplasm digest the ingested food.
• Assimilation : Assimilation of digested material occurs by diffusion. The digested food diffuses into the cytoplasm and is used by the cell. As a result of assimilation, Amoeba grows in size.
• Egestion : The undigested food is eliminated through the surface of the cell, where the food vacuole containing the undigested food bursts and discharges its contents to the outside. Food vacuole eventually disappears.