Nutrition.

Living
Things
Cells – Energy and
structure production
occurs only inside of cells.
Interconnections
between
different
systems
 Why Nutrition is required?
Why food is required
Energy, Building block.

You eat what you like right?

But what can be considered food? – stuff that yields energy, acts as building
blocks?

Nutrition The food you eat must have small molecules which we want.
From those molecules we get energy or raw material to build structures of
our own body.
Nails, cell membrane, insulin, hair, enzymes

What might be the components of food?

Carbs, Proteins, Fats and other micros.
 Nutrition
Is Presence of carbon necessary for the substance to be called food.

Can any carbon compound act as food?

Why Glucose is selected as energy source?

Is breakdown of glucose and energy release from that breakdown is the final goal of nutrition? (Building block too)

Breakdown of glucose is – Respiration?

Oxygen is needed for the breakdown of glucose.
Oxygen intake efficiency matters for nutritive system.

Importance of transport System –

Transport of broken down food particles in digestive system (Particles absorbed into blood) by blood toward all body cells.
Transport of oxygen from breathing mechanism to all body cells
Nutrition
All Organisms need food
All organisms must have system dedicated towards the process of nutrition – Compartments. (Alimentary canal, gut)
From a unicellular organism to complex organisms like worms, insects, fishes, reptiles, mammals
Regardless of what they eat, there must be some commonalities.
Can we classify animal on the basis of what they eat (Nutrition)
So we call those commonalities the salient features.
1) Acquisition of food – Hunting, foraging from worms to humans acquisition is necessary.
2) Ingestion – Actual eating or intake.
3) Digestion – As we need smaller molecules present in food.
4) Absorption – To move digested food into blood stream/Into transport system
Transport system – Moves digested food particles to each and every cell.
5) Assimilation - Into cells
6) Usage - of building blocks to make stuff, Usage of glucose, fats for energy production – Process of cellular Respiration
7) Excretion -
Cellular respiration – Needs oxygen, we intake oxygen with the help of breathing mechanism and transport it to each and every cell with the help of Blood (RBC,
haemoglobin)
Respiratory, Digestive and other wastes produced due to Protein metabolism etc must be excreted.
Components of food as building blocks
• Protein – Long chain of amino acid (Carbon-Nitrogen compound), Broken down into AA
• Fats – Long chain of carbon
• Carbohydrates – Long chain of sugars (Carbon-Oxygen Compound) broken down into sugars i.e. glucose

We break those components of food when we eat right?

There must be some physical forces to do that.
Also there must be some chemicals which work on proteins, some work on fats and some on Carbohydrates.

Where do we use those as structural elements. – Fats in plasma membrane, proteins used to make hormones, enzymes, muscles etc.

• Minerals – Ca, Zn, Fe

• Vitamins – A, B complex, C, D, E, F etc.
• Ions – Na+, K+, Cl-

Macro – Protein, Carbs, Fats

Micro – Minerals, vitamins, ions

What might be the minimum daily requirement of those nutrients by the body?
What happens when you are deficient in those nutrients? – Deficiency Diseases.
Can you name the sources of those nutrients?
Components of food used for energy
• Fatty acids and Glucose as sources of energy.
• We calculate energy in calories.

• Basal Metabolic Rate – BMR – Minimum calories required per day when at rest.
Fatty acids – 9 calories ( More Carbon bonds, more energy in bonds)
Glucose – 4 Calories ( Main respiratory substrate, used for energy)
Amino acids - 4 Calories (Generally not used as energy substrates, Only in extreme conditions like starving

• Components used for energy can be stored too.

Carbohydrates stored in liver and muscle as glycogen – amount equivalent to a day’s requirement.
Fat is stored all over body in cells and it does not require water to do that. (fat hates water)
 • Photosynthesis – Oxygenic, anoxygenic
• Predation – Carnivory, Herbivory, Omnivore
• Detrivores/Saprophytic.

Modes of • Associations – Parasitic, Symbiotic, Commensals

nutrition
Symbiotic - Hermit crabs and sponges.
Commensalism – Birds on ungulates (Hoofed
animals)
Feeding Behaviour -
Gathering/Hunting and
dressing.
• Gathering, Hunting and Dressing Should be profitable.
• Cost – Energy and Time, Benefit – Caloric surplus
 Optimal foraging theory -
• First proposed around 1966, R.H Macarthur and E.R. Pianka
• Feeding behaviour should be profitable and it always is. Profitable in terms of energy
surplus and raw material.
• Feeding behaviour is always directed by the fact that if that particular behaviour is profitable
or not.

• Natural selection favours animals whose behavioural strategies maximize their net energy/
Energy Profit.
• Theory explains – animals do have a lot of choices, lot of preys, yet they show a few
preference.
• Theory might help to justify apparent flawed decision making about choices of prey (In our
eyes)
• Behaviours is of 2 types, inherent and experience learning
Softy Vs Pitbull
Feeding behaviour in shore crab
• Shore crabs eat mussels
• Use crab hammer to bust open the clam.

• Bigger the mussel more food, smaller mussel less food

• We find that most crabs prefer Moderately sized mussels

Smaller mussels – effort to break the shell, less food, need to be accurate
Bigger mussels – more effort to break, more reward but in that process chances of injury.
Animals tend to prefer prey which is going to yield the most energy surplus.
(Energy investment, Time, Risk of injuries, risk of predation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiqq6SoJ-M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ1pRLF8hIo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJUG8UvY-lk
Crows Vs mussels

• Optimal Dropping height –

1) Size of mussels
2) Risk of failed attempts
3) Energy used for flight
Prey
Qualities –
size, Risk
of injuries
Number dynamics
between prey and
predators
competition
Competition between species and individuals
Aggression, Dominance, pack structures, hierarchies, territorial behavior,
Katydids –
Feeding behaviour
Sexual selection

• Female-Female
competition - Darryl T.
Gwynne 1999

• Male Direct Benefits by

giving spermatophores for
nourishment (Nuptial
gifts) - Lehmann 2012
Katydids
• Limiting sex is the one with lower maximum reproductive rate.
• Limiting sex is choosy.
• Sometimes males are choosy, sometimes females.

• Males give nuptial gifts to females (Spermatophores for nourishment)

• Male-male competition –
• So male with more resources are selected, males compete to get females.
• Female-Female Competition –
• When Resources are scarce, Males back off, don’t mate. Now limiting sex is males.
• Now females fight over males and males become choosy.
• When Food is abundant, they don’t need nuptial gifts and that’s why they choose best males.
Guppies – Feeding
behviour affected
by sexul selection
• Experiment suggesting that
Runaway selection and sexy-son
may be the mechanism of sexual
selection.
• K. Karino 2004
 • Orange spots on males are preferred by females.
• Male can generate those orange spots made from carotenoids.
• They get those carotenoids by hunting little crustaceans.
• So more the Orange spot, better he is at hunting, better foraging genes so
better survival.
• Females choose Males with orange spot for that reason.

• When Guppies are moved to an area without crustaceans –

Guppies • Females still are choosing the males with orange spots.
• Those orange spots do not indicate any of the previously mentioned
reasons, yet females are choosing guppies with orange spots.
• Over the generations sensory bias is developed in female guppies towards
orange spots.

• Now males can in fact exploit that bias, just by investing more energy,
resources into making those orange spots.
• Now runway selection starts
Feeding
behaviour
summary
 • Ingestion refers to consumption of foods.
• Adaptations that help animals – Claws, teeth, beak shapes
ETC.
• Common Methods include
1) Filter feeding – Sponges, Baleen whales, Flamingos, Ducks,
Krill, Moon Jellyfish.

Ingestion 2)
3)
Deposit feeding – Crabs, sea cucumber, snail, eels.
Fluid Feeding – Mosquito, bees, hummingbird, butterfly.
4) Bulk Feeding – Snake, cows, humans, lion
5) Suction Feeding – Grouper
6) Pseudopodia.
7) Cell membrane furrow.
Digestion
• Simply known as breaking down of food.
• 2 Types – Mechanical and Chemical.
• Goal of digestion – Breaking down Carbs into glucose, Proteins into amino acids and Fats into fatty
acids. In stepwise manner

• The Goal of digestion Remains Same in all taxa, From Sponges to Complex mammals.
• What Changes is structure , and yet functions of organs of digestive system are quiet similar.
• E.g. Stomach shows same functions across taxa. That is digesting
Group of similar animals – Taxa, Phylum
• Unicellular Organisms
• Sponges –
• Cnidaria – Moving – anemones , sedentary – jellies, hydra
• Flat worms – Flukes, Tapeworms, Free living
• Nematoda (Round Worms) – Chromadorea, Enoplea, Secernentea
• Annelids – Oligochaeta, Polychaeta, Leeches - Hirudinea
• Arthropoda – Arachnida, Insects, Crustaceans
• Molluscs – Cephalopoda, Gastropods, Bivalve, Scapophora
• Echinodermata – Star fish, Sea urchins, Sand dollars, Feather stars
• Chordata – Fish, bird, amphibians, reptiles, mammals
•Hierarchy
Unicellular digestion/Intracellular digestion

• Food – Organic material

• Feeding behaviour – Predation, Opportunism, Accidental.

• Ingestion – By endocytosis

• Compartment – Simplest is food Vacuole

• Digestion – with the help of cell organelle known as lysosome

Mechanical digestion – not seen
Chemical digestion – by enzymes for every component of food.

• Excretion – Through vesicular exocytosis

Nutrition in Sponges
• Nutrition – Detrivores, sometimes carnivore, Symbiotic.
• Food – Bacteria, small bits of organic matter, Photosynthetic - symbionts such as green algae, dinoflagellates, or cyanobacteria, Carnivores – Digesting
whole small animals (Shrimps)

• Ingestion - Water flowing through sponges provides food and oxygen, as well as a means for waste removal. This flow is actively generated by the beating
of flagella. Sponges can regulate the amount of flow through their bodies by the constriction of various openings. Through Ostia

• Feeding behavior –
sponges feed by filtering bacteria from the water that passes through them.
Some sponges trap roughly 90 percent of all bacteria in the water they filter.
Other sponges, hexactinellids, appear to be less efficient at capturing bacteria and may specialize in feeding on smaller bits of organic matter.
Still other sponges harbor symbionts such as green algae, dinoflagellates, or cyanobacteria, from which they also derive nutrients.
Carnivorous exception –
Sponges of the family Cladorhizidae are especially unusual in that they typically feed by capturing and digesting whole animals.
They capture small crustaceans with their spicules which act like Velcro when they meet the crustacean exoskeletons. Cells then migrate around the helpless
prey and digestion takes place extracellularly.
• Compartments – Cavity Without specialized structure for Enzyme secretion.
• Digestion – Multicellular organism yet, Digestion is intracellular, Only Sometimes in the sponge cavity
• Excretion – Metabolic waste and non-metabolic wastes moves through osculum.
Nutrition in Cnidarians E.g. Hydra
• Type of nutrition – Mainly Carnivore, sometimes association with green algae.
• Food – Small fishes, crustaceans
• Feeding behaviour –
Most use their cnidae and associated toxin to capture food.
Sessile polyps depend for food on organisms that meet their tentacles.
Colonial corals with minute polyps, feed on particulate material gathered in mucus impelled to the mouth by cilia (microscopic hairlike projections of cells capable of
beating or waving).
Hydromedusa alternately swims upward and sinks: on the upward course, its trailing tentacles are not apt to encounter food organisms, but in sinking, the extended
tentacles “fish” through the water, capturing food. Once a food item has been captured, tentacles move it to the mouth, either by bending in that direction or by
passing it to tentacles nearer the mouth. The mouth opens, the lips grasp the food, and muscular actions complete swallowing. – Like an Umbrella.
Pink, orange, red, and brown cnidarians are commonly pigmented by carotenoids derived from crustaceans in their diet.
The carnivorous cnidarians cannot digest these algae but do derive a variety of nutrients from them, including glucose and oxygen. Carbon dioxide produced in
respiration may be used by the algae in photosynthesis.
• Ingestion – Capturing prey by tentacles, ingested through muscular mouth.
• Compartment – Actual Cavity lined by cells which produce enzymes, for breakdown of proteins, Some cells Absorb nutrients and particles
• Digestion – Protein is digested in the gastrovascular cavity; Other nutrients are digested internally.
• Excretion – They Excrete from where they ingest, Inefficient way, single opening digestive system
They poop from where they eat that’s gross – When this happens it called Gastrovascular cavity
When Mouth and anus, meaning 2 openings present we call it alimentary canal

What are the organs present in alimentary canal, what's their function vaguely?
Which organs in digestive system developed first?
Hydra
 Nutrition in flatworms
• Type of Nutrition – Free living - Carnivore, Parasitic, Saprophytic too
• Food – Crustaceans, small fishes, if parasitic – eats linings of organs, Organic matter
• Feeding behaviour -
Scavenging on the remains of dead animals or in some cases tracking, capturing, and killing their prey.
Flukes and tapeworms parasitise humans and livestock and many animals in contact.
• Ingestion – Protrusible pharynx, mid dorsal side of flatworm.
• Compartment –
Single opening, Gastrovascular cavity branched, all over body, lined by cells which absorb digestive enzymes and absorb broken down food particles.
Secrete protein digesting enzymes into the branched chambers.
Fats and Carbs digested intracellularly.
• Digestion –
Mechanical – When worm moves
Chemical – In compartment protein digesting enzymes secreted.
• Excretion – They excrete from all over the body, as well as its mouth too.
Digestive System - Nematodes
• Mode of Nutrition – Parasitism, Predation, Saprozoic, Coprozoic (On fecal matter)
• Food and Feeding behavior –
Internal organs, cells of nearly all taxa for parasitic species.
Feed on small annelids, rotifers, tardigrades, and other nematodes
Many species of nematode penetrate and feed on plant juices from higher plants
The Free-living nematodes feed on yeasts, bacteria, fungi, and algae.
• Ingestion – Depends on what their food is, Species with stylet pours enzyme into prey
• Compartments -
Complete digestive system, which includes both a mouth and an anus.
The oral cavity is lined with cuticle, structures – ridges, teeth, stylet (Pointy structure to penetrate)
Pharynx directly attached to intestine.
Digestive organ – gut, Digestive enzymes
Intestine which produces enzymes, break down food and absorb nutrients.
Absorption of nutrients in intestine by single layer of cells.
The last portion of the intestine forms a rectum – Expels waste through anus.
movement of food through the digestive system is by body movements of the worm
• Digestion –
Mechanical – By body movements
Chemical – By enzymes produced by cells in rudimentary stomach and intestine.
Excretion - Defecation is done by muscles that pull the anus open, and an expelling force is provided by the high pseudo coelomic pressure that surrounds the gut.
Ingestion and digestive system
 1) There is way too much
diversity in Foods of different
animals and their feeding
behavior.

2) There are a lot of common things in higher

organism’s Digestive systems.

3) In fact, from simple earthworm,

insects to higher animals such as
fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals we
see too much similarity.
4) So that we jump directly
to human digestive system
after studying digestive
system in lower organism

5) Then after human digestive system we

move towards some specialized digestive
systems of higher organisms.
 Salient Features of digestive system
What common Features Every digestive system must have.
Alimentary canal –
Place of Ingestion
Place for mechanical digestion – Mouth, Stomach
Place for Chemical Digestion – Mouth, Stomach, Small intestine
Place for absorption of digested food into the blood stream – Small intestine
Place for absorption of extra water – Large intestine
Place for digestion of fibbers – Large intestine
Place for storage of feces and excretion – Rectum and anus

Associated glands – Liver, Pancreas, Salivary glands.

Enzymes and chemicals - for breakdown of food in stepwise manner.

Protein digesting
Fat digesting
Carbohydrate digesting
Nucleic acid digesting

Cells –
Enzymes/Mucous/Hormone producing cells
Structural cells
•Human Digestive system
What that mouth do?
• Structures in mouth - Tongue, Teeth, lips
• Mechanical digestion - Chewing.
• Chemical digestion - Digestion of starch/Carbs
• Associated glands - 3 Salivary gland
• Salivary glands – Secrete saliva
• Saliva – Neutral PH
• Enzymes – Salivary amylase and mucous
• Salivary amylase – Digest Starch. (Carbs)
• Cells – Mucous, Serous - Acinar
•Digestion of dietary carbohydrates.
Oesophagus
• Structures – Elongated tube, Wall with a decent mass of smooth muscles.
• Mechanical digestion – None, Though peristalsis
• Chemical digestion – Saliva continue to digest food, its just that, it isn't significant.
• Associated glands - None
• Enzymes – None
• Cells – Epithelium Stratified Squamous
• Sphincters – at the end of oesophagus at entry of stomach
•Barrett's Syndrome
 Stomach
• Structures – Cardia, Fundus, body, Antrum, Pylorus
• Mechanical Digestion – Churning, Wall with a good amount of smooth muscle.
• Chemical Digestion – Starch, Mainly protein digestion, Needs acidic environment
• Associated Glands – Gastric glands in stomach walls. Gastric glands secrete gastric juices.
• Gastric juices – HCl, Pepsinogen, Mucous
• Enzymes – Pepsinogen, Pepsin
• Cells of stomach walls – 1) Goblet cells – Mucous 2) Chief cells/Peptic cells – Pepsinogen 3) Oxyntic
cells - HCl
• Unique Features – Muscle in large quantity
• Sphincters – Gastroesophageal sphincter, gastrointestinal sphincter.
• Hormonal Control – Gastrin hormone leads to activation of gastric glands.
 • Structures – Duodenum, jejunum, Ileum
• Mechanical Digestion – Nearly nothing
• Chemical Digestion – Amylases, peptidases, Rnases,
Dnases, Lipases
• Associated Glands – Liver – Secreting bile, Pancreas –
Small Amylases, Peptidases, Trypsin, Chymotrypsin, Lipases.

Intestine • Enzymes – Amylases, Peptidases, Trypsin, Chymotrypsin,

Lipases.
• Cells of Intestinal walls – Enterocytes – Columnar, goblet
cells, Paneth cells (Crypts of Lieberkühn), stem cells.
• Unique Features – Payer's Patches, Site of absorption
• Sphincters – Gastro-Intestinal, Ileocecal sphincter
Large intestine
• Three parts are the colon, the rectum and the anus.
• Colon parts – Caecum, ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon
• Colon - The colon’s job is to dehydrate what’s left of the food and form it into stool. It does this by slowly
absorbing water and electrolytes as its muscle system moves the waste along.
• Dehydration is done before food enters descending colon, so descending colon has solid waste, water and
electrolytes absorbed before it enters descending colon
• Bacteria living in your colon feed on the waste and break it down further, completing the chemical part of the
digestive process. (B and K vitamin)
• Caecum – Bacteria are present in abundance; This is the reservoir where food from the small intestine arrives
in the large intestine. When the cecum is full, it triggers the muscle movements of the colon to begin.
• Rectum - When poop enters the rectum, it triggers the urge to defecate. This is the natural continuation of the
mass muscle movements of the colon.
• Anus - The anus is the canal your poop will travel through to leave your body. It’s closed on each side by a
muscle sphincter. Internal sphincter involuntary, external voluntary.
Large intestine vs bacteria
• Normal microflora – Helps in Digestion, Defence, energy production in
colon
Digestion
• Functions – Mechanical and chemical
breakdown.
• Features – Longitudinal tube through
body, Regional specialization.
• Trends – Complexity increases as
foods' harder to digest. [E.g. Simple in
filter feeding and carnivore and
Complex in Super-specialized that is
herbivores]
Specialization in different groups.
• House fly – Outside digestion
• Hook worm – Reduced system
• Fishes – No Salivary gland, sometimes no Stomach (in filter feeders)
• Amphibians (Frogs, Caecilians, salamanders) – Short Oesophagus, Cloaca
• Reptilians (crocks, tuataras, turtle) – Gizzard (grinds food), caeca – pouches in intestine
for more digestion time.
• Snake – all Chemical digestion
• Birds – Keratinized beak and tongue, Crop for regurgitation, Gizzard + stones (seed
Eaters)
Herbivores adaptations
Goal is to keep food in alimentary canal as long as possible, have large number of fibres digesting microbes.

Structural adaptations -
Compartmentalized stomach
Longer intestine
Bigger caecum
Spiral loops

Behavioural adaptations –
curdling
Eating own poop
Ruminant behaviour

Associations – Microbial –
Hindgut fermenters –
Colonic fermentation (Horse, Rhino) ,caecal fermenters (Rabbits, Rodents)
Foregut fermenters – Chambered stomach, Monkeys, Cows, Kangaroos, Sloths