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Saprotrophic nutrition
Saprotrophic nutrition /sæprəˈtrɒfɪk, -proʊ-/[1] or lysotrophic nutrition[2][3] is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi (e.g. Mucor) and with soil bacteria. Saprotrophic microscopic fungi are sometimes called saprobes.[4] Saprotrophic plants or bacterial flora are called saprophytes (sapro- 'rotten material' + -phyte 'plant'), although it is now believed[citation needed] that all plants previously thought to be saprotrophic are in fact parasites of microscopic fungi or of other plants. In fungi, the saprotrophic process is most often facilitated through the active transport of such materials through endocytosis within the internal mycelium and its constituent hyphae.[5]
Various word roots relating to decayed matter (detritus, sapro-, lyso-), to eating and nutrition (-vore, -phage, -troph), and to plants or life forms (-phyte, -obe) produce various terms, such as detritivore, detritophage, saprotroph, saprophyte, saprophage, and saprobe; their meanings overlap, although technical distinctions (based on physiologic mechanisms) narrow the senses. For example, biologists can make usage distinctions based on macroscopic swallowing of detritus (as in earthworms) versus microscopic lysis of detritus (as with mushrooms).
- ^ "Saprotroph – definition of saprotroph in English from the Oxford dictionary". OxfordDictionaries.com. Archived from the original on November 8, 2012. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
- ^ "lyso-". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ "The Ecology of Story: Revealing Hidden Characters of the Forest". April 25, 2020.
- ^ "saprobe". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) - "The word saprophyte and its derivatives, implying that a fungus is a plant, can be replaced by saprobe (σαπρός + βίος), which is without such implication."
- ^ Clegg & Mackean (2006, p. 296) states the purpose of saprotrophs and their internal nutrition, as well as discussing the main two types of fungi that are most often referred to. It also describes, visually, the process of saprotrophic nutrition through a diagram of hyphae, referring to the Rhizobium on damp, stale whole-meal bread or on rotting fruit.
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