mixotrophic, a. Biol.
(mɪksəʊˈtrəʊfɪk)
[a. G. mixotroph (W. Pfeffer Pflanzenphysiologie (ed. 2, 1897). I. vii. 349), f. mixo- + Gr. τροϕικός nursing.]
Living by a mixture of autotrophic and heterotrophic nutrition; pertaining to nutrition of this kind.
| 1900 A. J. Ewart tr. Pfeffer's Physiol. Plants I. vii. 364 By others [sc. plants] a portion only of the organic food is drawn from the external world, the rest being supplied by the imperfectly developed chlorophyll-apparatus; such may be termed ‘mixotrophic’ plants. Ibid., All stages of transition between pure autotrophism and heterotrophism are exhibited among obligate or facultative mixotrophic plants. 1940 L. H. Hyman Invertebrates I. iii. 58 Nutrition [of Protozoa] is holophytic, saprozoic, holozoic, or mixotrophic. 1965 Bell & Coombe tr. Strasburger's Textbk. Bot. 5 Such mixotrophic organisms [sc. unicellular Protista] (which obtain their energy partly directly as autotrophs, and partly indirectly as heterotrophs) are regarded as the starting-point of two great developmental series which have led on the one side to the ‘typical’ plants and on the other to the ‘typical’ animals. |