Question

An amoeba is a unicellular organism, which doesn’t have a stomach for digestion of food. How does food storage and digestion take place in an amoeba?

Answer 1

There is a food vacuole in the cytoplasm of the amoeba. Both food storage and digestion take place inside. Once digested, it reaches each cell organelle. 

Answer 2

Answer:

In amoeba, the digestion and absorption of food take place in five simple steps:

Ingestion: The amoeba ingests or takes in the food with the help of pseudopodia. It encircles the food particle and engulfs it.

Digestion: The food is digested in a specialized vacuole termed food vacuole. It contains all the necessary digestive enzymes which breakdown the complex food substances into smaller and simpler units.

Absorption: The digested food is then absorbed in the cytoplasm by the process called simple diffusion. If excess food is available, then amoeba stores it in the cytoplasm in the form of lipids and glycogen.

Assimilation: The absorbed nutrients are then used for energy production which helps in growth, repair, locomotion, and reproduction.

Egestion: When a sufficient amount of waste and undigested is collected in the food vacuole, it is thrown out of the body by integrating or rupturing cell membranes.