How does bacteria obtain nutrients?

Question

How does bacteria obtain nutrients?

Answer 1

Most bacteria consume things already dead. They decompose stuff like shed skin, carcasses, and plant bits such as leaves. These do it by secreting digesting enzymes outside themselves onto the food source.  The bacteria then absorb just what they need.

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Other bacteria can photosynthesize. These include the cyanobacteria that produce oxygen for our atmosphere. They still contribute up 30% of the Earth available oxygen every year. Then there are the purple nonsulfur bacteria that do both, photosynthesize and get their energy from organic compounds.

Some symbiotic  bacteria help us digest the food we consume. These beneficial gut flora provide us with essential nutrients like vitamin B1 & B6 we cannot make ourselves. There are over 800 known species living in humans but people do not have all. Different populations of people have different collectives of gut bacteria.  Understanding what a specific group of bacteria do in the gut and how they work together to digest may affect how we get energy from our food and gain weight.

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Answer 2

Not sure but some are hetetrotrophs, some autotrophs, some parasites and some saprobes. They can get them from all these methods of nutrition I would assume. But they have to perform extracellular digestion which in when they secrete enzymes outside their body to digest food and they they eat it.