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Some nutrients can be stored – the fat-soluble vitamins – while others are required more or less continuously. Poor health can be caused by a lack of required nutrients, or for some vitamins and minerals, too much of a required nutrient. Essential nutrients cannot be synthesized by the body, and must be obtained from food.
Nutrients are substances that provide energy and physical components to the organism, allowing it to survive, grow, and reproduce. Nutrients can be basic elements or complex macromolecules. Approximately 30 elements are found in organic matter, with nitrogen, carbon, and phosphorus being the most important. [5]
A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excreted by cells to create non-cellular structures such as hair, scales, feathers, or exoskeletons.
A simplified food web illustrating a three-trophic food chain (producers-herbivores-carnivores) linked to decomposers. The movement of mineral nutrients through the food chain, into the mineral nutrient pool, and back into the trophic system illustrates ecological recycling. The movement of energy, in contrast, is unidirectional and noncyclic.
Food composition datasets (FCDBs) or food composition tables are resources that provide detailed food composition data (FCD) on the nutritionally important components of foods. FCDBs provide values for energy and nutrients including protein , carbohydrates , fat , vitamins and minerals and for other important food components such as fibre .
The microbial food web refers to the combined trophic interactions among microbes in aquatic environments. These microbes include viruses, bacteria, algae, heterotrophic protists (such as ciliates and flagellates). [1] In aquatic ecosystems, microbial food webs are essential because they form the basis for the cycling of nutrients and energy.
Amino acids are necessary nutrients. Present in every cell, they are also precursors to nucleic acids, co-enzymes, hormones, immune response, repair and other molecules essential for life. Proteins are essential nutrients for the human body. [1] They are one of the building blocks of body tissue and can also serve as a fuel source.
Food chain length is another way of describing food webs as a measure of the number of species encountered as energy or nutrients move from the plants to top predators. [41]: 269 There are different ways of calculating food chain length depending on what parameters of the food web dynamic are being considered: connectance, energy, or ...