Saprophytes: what is it, what do they eat, where they live?

In nature, there are organisms - bacteria, fungi, plants, animals - feeding on ready organic compounds. The source of carbon for them serve as particles of dead or the products of vital activity of living creatures of nature. Such creatures are called "saprophytes". What it is? Let's try to find out in this article.

origin of name

The name of this group of organisms comes from two Greek words: "rotten" and "plant". From here you can literally understand the meaning of the concept. Saprophytes use in food products of vital activity of other organisms, tissues of plant and animal origin, often - dead.

Role of saprophytes

The role of these creatures of nature in the global circulation of substances is great. Every living organism must die someday. So it is arranged by the nature. Many saprophytes are designed for the disposal of dead tissue. Without them, the biosphere would simply be drowned in its own waste, and the whole Earth would be littered with the products of vital activity and the waste of various organisms - living and dead. Saprophytes perform in nature the role of janitors, cleansing the place for a new life. They also decompose organic tissues into constituent elements, which are then used by other organisms for their own nutrition and functioning.

Which bacteria are called saprophytes?

The total number of bacteria living on planet Earth is truly incalculable, it can not be precisely calculated. The microorganisms, from the point of view of classification in biology, are the most numerous Kingdom. Most of the currently existing bacteria are saprophytes.

Main functions

Bacteria-saprophytes: what is it? Their purpose is to decompose the organic matter in aqueous media and soil, to participate in the mineralization, the cycle of chemical elements. Azotobacteria, for example, take an active part in the process of nitrogen fixation. Some are the most important links in the transformation of carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus. And other microorganisms "help" a person to cook food. After all, the process of lactic fermentation directly depends on saprophytes. Sour cream, cottage cheese, cheese, ryazhenka, pickles, weak alcohol are those products that without bacteria simply could not exist.

Blue-green algae

These cyanobacteria are involved in the production of oxygen. Scientists believe that it was precisely these ancient microorganisms that began to form the atmosphere of the Earth several billion years ago. After all, there were no trees and other plants that released oxygen in the process of photosynthesis . And the bacteria existed. Even now - in view of their multiplicity - their share in the production of this gas is significant.

Mushrooms and saprophytes

In the kingdom of mushrooms there are also representatives of this category: small and medium, even large. They use flax foliage, humus, trunks and branches, manure, charcoal, feathers and down of birds, animal fur. In general, any organic matter that is available to them. For example, the white aphyllum, the falsely-sour gray-yellow, the shaggy dung, the boletus, the birch-bark and many others are saprophytes. Many forest mushrooms enter into symbiosis with higher plants (trees, shrubs), producing from all possible plant and animal remains the fertilizers necessary for plant nutrition.

A huge importance (often not very pleasant) is all sorts of microscopic saprophytes-fungi. They often settle in food, transforming them into their livelihoods, creating both edible in the future and inedible foods. Moldy bread and sour jam, fermented fruit juice, rotten apple - their "hands" matter. Of the useful - a tea mushroom, Indian rice, fungal fermentation in the production of alcohol.

In the Kingdom of plants there are also saprophytes. What it is? These representatives of the flora are absent, as a rule, the elements of photosynthesis (pigments) and this process is carried out due to the fitness for eating food from mushrooms, for example. Impossibility of photosynthesis can be partial. So, some species of orchids only to a certain extent depend on fungi, but can also carry out photosynthesis in addition.

Such plants are called mycoheterotrophs. They number more than 400 of all kinds.

Animals are saprophytes. What it is?

Among the representatives of fauna also there are similar organisms. For example, ticks-saprophytes (a family of arachnids). These arthropods do not depend directly on other organisms, but still need organic compounds. They use decaying plant or animal tissues for their food. Saprophytes are more than 150 species of dust mites , some of them are considered allergenic. They can be seen only under a microscope, since their dimensions are minimal (average - 0.2 mm). The life span of the animal is about four months. During this time the mite female manages to postpone up to 300 eggs. And only one gram of dust can "lodge" up to several thousand of these organisms. They eat scales of a layer of people's skin, which are present in abundance where the person sleeps (according to science, a person can dump up to 700 grams of dead skin particles per year, they also eat dust saprophytes).