Digestion and Nutrition

Obtaining Energy
 All organisms require energy to maintain their complex
structure.

 The ultimate source of energy is the sun.

 Green plants utilize energy in sunlight to make
glucose.
 Autotrophs (phototrophs)
 A few autotrophs are chemotrophs, gaining
energy from inorganic chemical reactions.
 Animals are Heterotrophs!
 Animals are heterotrophs, depending on other
organisms for food.
 Animals fall into one of three dietary categories:
 Herbivores eat mainly autotrophs (plants and
algae).
 Carnivores eat other animals.
 Omnivores regularly consume animals as well as
plants or algal matter.
 Saprophagous animals feed on decaying organic
matter.
 Why We Eat
 Regardless of what an animal eats, an adequate diet
must satisfy three nutritional needs:
 Fuel for all cellular work.
 The organic raw materials for biosynthesis.
 Essential nutrients, substances such as vitamins that
the animal cannot make for itself.
 Feeding Mechanisms
 Very few animals absorb nutrients directly from the
environment.
 Exceptions include parasites that absorb nutrients
that have been digested by the host:
 Blood parasites
 Protozoan parasites
 Tapeworms
 Feeding Mechanisms – Particulate
Matter
 The upper portion of lakes and oceans contains very
small animals and plants (plankton) that drift with the
water currents.
 Along with plankton, there is also organic debris
floating in the water column and mixed in with the
sediment.
 Many organisms feed on this particulate matter.
 Feeding Mechanisms – Particulate
Matter
 Suspension feeders
use ciliated surfaces to
create a current that
draws drifting food
particles into their
mouths.
 Many use mucous
sheets to entrap
food.
 Tube dwelling
polychaetes
Feeding Mechanisms – Particulate
Matter
 Others use
sweeping
movements of
setae-fringed legs
to create
currents.
 Fairy shrimp,
 Feeding Mechanisms – Particulate
Matter
 Filter feeding is a
form of suspension
feeding that involves
straining food from
the water as it
passes through a
filtering device.
 Basking sharks,
 Feeding Mechanisms – Particulate
Matter
 Deposit feeders consume
the organic matter (detritus)
that accumulates on the
substratum.
 Many annelids simply eat
the substrate, digesting
organic matter.
 Others use appendages to
gather organic deposits
and move them to the
mouth.
 Feeding Mechanisms
 Predators have evolved a variety
of ways to capture, hold, and
swallow prey.
 Many swallow food items whole.
 Some have specialized teeth,
beaks, or tooth-like structures.
 Some have highly elastic jaws
and distensible stomachs to
accommodate large meals.
 Insects have 3 pairs of
appendages specialized for
feeding.
 Feeding Mechanisms
 Only mammals can actually chew their food.
 Mammals have teeth that are specialized for
different functions.
 Incisors – biting, cutting, stripping leaves.
 Canines – seizing, piercing, tearing.
 Premolars & molars – grinding and crushing.
 Feeding Mechanisms
 Herbivorous animals have evolved special devices for
crushing and cutting plant material.
 Snails have a radula for scraping algae or plant
material.
 Insects have grinding & cutting mandibles.
 Mammals have wide corrugated molars for grinding.
 Feeding Mechanisms
 Fluid feeders may bite and rasp at host
tissues, suck blood, and feed on contents of a
host’s intestines.
 Many have specialized, tubelike mouthparts.
 The Main Stages of Food
Processing
 Ingestion is the act of eating.
 Digestion is the process of breaking food
down into molecules small enough to absorb.
 Involves enzymatic hydrolysis of polymers
into their monomers.
 The Main Stages of Food
Processing
 Absorption is the uptake of nutrients by body
cells.
 Elimination occurs as undigested material
passes out of the digestive system.
 Intracellular Digestion
 In intracellular digestion,
food particles are engulfed
by endocytosis and
digested within food
vacuoles.
 Protozoa, sponges.
 Extracellular Digestion
 Extracellular digestion is the breakdown of
food particles outside cells.
 Digestion occurs in the alimentary canal.
 Cells lining the lumen of the alimentary canal are
specialized for secreting enzymes or absorbing
nutrients.
 Digestive Systems
 Animals with simple body
plans have a
gastrovascular cavity that
functions in both
digestion and distribution
of nutrients.
 Digestive Systems
 Animals with a more complex body plan have a
digestive tube with two openings, a mouth and an
anus.

 This digestive tube is called a complete digestive

tract or an alimentary canal.
 Digestive Systems
 The digestive tube can
be organized into
specialized regions that
carry out digestion and
nutrient absorption in a
stepwise fashion.
Mammalian Digestive System
 The mammalian digestive system consists of
the alimentary canal and various accessory
glands that secrete digestive juices through
ducts.
 Digestive Enzymes
 Enzymes are essential in the breakdown of
food into small, absorbable units.
 Digestive enzymes are hydrolytic enzymes.
 Food molecules are split by hydrolysis.
 R-R + H2O digestive enzyme R-OH + H-R
 Digestive Enzymes
 Proteins are broken down into individual amino acids.
 Complex carbohydrates are broken down into simple
sugars.

 Fats are reduced to glycerol, fatty acids, and

monoglycerides.
 Motility in Alimentary Canal
 Food moves through the alimentary canal by cilia,
specialized musculature, or both.
 Motility in Alimentary Canal
 The gut is lined
with opposing
layers of smooth
muscle: a
circular layer and
a longitudinal
layer.
 Motility in Alimentary Canal
 Two types of gut movement:
 Segmentation involves
alternate constriction of
rings of smooth muscle that
move the contents around,
mixing with enzymes.
 Peristalsis involves waves
of contraction behind the
food mass that move it
through the gut.
 Organization - Five Major Regions
 Reception
 Conduction & Storage
 Grinding & early
digestion
 Terminal digestion and
absorption
 Water absorption and
concentration of solids.
 Receiving Region
 The receiving region consists of devices for
feeding and swallowing.
 Mouthparts – mandibles, jaws, teeth, radula, bills.
 Buccal cavity – mouth
 Muscular pharynx – throat
 Salivary glands – produce lubricating secretions
that may also contain toxic enzymes or salivary
enzymes to begin digestion.
 Amylase begins hydrolysis of starches.
 Receiving Region
 The vertebrate tongue assists in food
manipulation and swallowing.
 Also used as a chemosensor.
 Conduction and Storage
Region
 The esophagus transfers food to the digestive region.
 In many invertebrates (annelids, insects, octopods) the
esophagus is expanded into a crop used for storage.

 Birds also have a crop that serves to store and soften

food.
Region of Grinding & Early Digestion
 The stomach provides initial digestion as well as
storing and mixing food with gastric juice.

 For further grinding of food, terrestrial oligochaetes and

birds have a muscular gizzard that is assisted by
stones or grit swallowed with food.
 The Stomach
 The lining of the
stomach is coated
with mucus, which
prevents the
gastric juice from
destroying the
cells.
 Pepsin is a
protease that
splits specific
peptide bonds.
 The Stomach
 Gastric ulcers,
lesions in the
lining, are caused
mainly by the
bacterium
Helicobacter
pylori.
 Region of Terminal Digestion and
Absorption
 The small intestine is the longest section of
the alimentary canal.
 It is the major organ of digestion and
absorption.
 Region of Terminal Digestion and
Absorption
 Increasing the surface
area of the intestine
increases the area
available for absorption.
 Longer intestine
 Villi – fingerlike
projections of
intestinal tissue in
birds and mammals
 Microvilli – tiny
processes on
intestinal cells.
 The Small Intestine
 The first portion of
the small intestine
is the duodenum,
where acid chyme
from the stomach
mixes with
digestive juices
from the pancreas,
liver, gallbladder,
and intestine itself.
 The Small Intestine
 The pancreas
produces:
 Proteases,
protein-digesting
enzymes.
 Lipases for
breaking up fat.
 Amylase for
hydrolyzing
starches.
 Nucleases which
degrade RNA &
DNA into
nucleotides.
 The Small Intestine
 The liver secretes bile into the bile duct which
drains into the duodenum.
 Bile is stored in the gallbladder between
meals.
 Bile salts are important for digestion of fats.
 The Small Intestine
 Enzymatic digestion is completed as peristalsis
moves the mixture of chyme and digestive
juices along the small intestine.
 Absorption of Nutrients
 The small intestine has a huge surface area
due to the presence of villi and microvilli that
are exposed to the intestinal lumen.
 Absorption of Nutrients
 The enormous
microvillar
surface is an
adaptation that
greatly
increases the
rate of nutrient
absorption.
 Absorption of Nutrients
 The core of each villus
contains a network of
blood vessels and a
small vessel of the
lymphatic system
called a lacteal.
 Absorption of Nutrients
 Amino acids and simple sugars pass through
the epithelium of the small intestine and enter
the bloodstream.
 Initial absorption occurs by facilitated
transport, later by active transport.
 Absorption of Nutrients
 Fats are emulsified by bile salts.
 Micelles are tiny droplets consisting
of fatty acids and monoglycerides
complexed with bile salts.
 Micelles diffuse into epithelial cells.
 Resynthesized into triglycerides and
pass into the lacteals of the lymphatic
system.
 Region of Water Absorption
 The large intestine,
or colon is
connected to the
small intestine.
 Region of Water Absorption
 A major function of the colon is to recover water
that has entered the alimentary canal.
 The wastes of the digestive tract, the feces,
become more solid as they move through the
colon.
 The terminal portion of the colon is the rectum
where feces are stored until they can be
eliminated.
 Region of Water Absorption
 The colon houses various strains of the
bacterium Escherichia coli.
 Some produce various vitamins.
 Regulation of Food Intake
 Hunger centers in the brain regulate food
intake.
 A drop in blood glucose level stimulates a
craving for food.
 Homeostatic mechanisms control the body’s
storage and metabolism of fat.
 Regulation of Food Intake
 Undernourishment occurs in animals when
their diets are chronically deficient in calories.
 Can have detrimental effects on an animal.
 Overnourishment results from excessive food
intake.
 Leads to the storage of excess calories as fat.