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Definition 2024


heterotroph

heterotroph

English

Noun

heterotroph (plural heterotrophs)

  1. (ecology) An organism which requires an external supply of energy in the form of food as it cannot synthesize its own.
    • 2013 March 1, Harold J. Morowitz, “The Smallest Cell”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 2, page 83:
      It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.

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German

Adjective

heterotroph (not comparable)

  1. heterotrophic

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