英和和英

出典:『Wikipedia』 (2011/07/01 08:44 UTC 版)

英語による解説

引用

Dietary minerals (also known as mineral nutrients) are the chemical elements required by living organisms, other than the four elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen present in common organic molecules. Examples of mineral elements include calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, zinc, and iodine. Most minerals that enter into the dietary physiology of organisms consist of simple chemical elements. Larger aggregates of minerals need to be broken down for absorption. Bacteria play an essential role in the weathering of primary minerals that results in the release of nutrients for their own nutrition and for the nutrition of others in the ecological food chain. Scientists are only recently starting to appreciate the magnitude and role that microorganisms have in the global cycling and formation of biological minerals. Plants absorb dissolved minerals in soils, which are subsequently picked up by the herbivores that eat them and so on, the minerals move up the food chain. Larger organisms may also consume soil (geophagia) and visit mineral licks to obtain limiting mineral nutrients they are unable to acquire through other components of their diet.