Gujarat BoardEnglish MediumSTD 10Sciencelife processes4 Marks
Question
What are life processes? Explain some important life processes which are needed for living beings.
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Answer
The main processes, that are carried out by all the living organisms in order to sustain their existence as living beings, are called life processes.
Some important life processes are as follows:
$(1)$ Nutrition:
A process to transfer a source of energy i.e., food from outside the body of the organism to the inside is commonly called nutrition.
Most of the food sources are carbon based and depending on the complexity of such sources, different organisms can use different kinds of nutritional processes.
$(2)$ Respiration:
A process of breakdown of food sources to provide energy for various biological activities is called respiration.
By this, carbon based food source broken and converted to a uniform source of energy i.e., $ATP$.
Most of organisms use oxygen for this called aerobic organisms where as some can do this in absence of oxygen called anaerobic organisms.
$(3)$ Transport:
In case of a single celled organism, no specific organs for taking food, exchange of gases or removal of wastes are needed because the entire surface of the organism is in contact with the environment.
In multicellular organisms all the cells may not be in direct contact with the surrounding environment.
The simple diffusion will not meet the requirement of all the cells.
So, transport of food and oxygen to all the cells of body and wastes collected from cells to excrete them, a special transportation system required.
In plants phloem and xylem tissue and in animals blood circulatory system functioning transportation.
$(4)$ Excretion:
Nitrogenous metabolic wastes are discarded from body by this process.
Single celled animals, remove wastes by simple diffusion from the body surface.
In multicellular organisms special tissue, organ or system designed for excretion.
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