The carbonaceous chondrites also contain about 2% solid organic polymer which may be nutrients for heterotrophs.
Possessing changes in microorganism type is obvious for multi-species biofilms that have distinctly different microbial types, such as heterotrophs and autotrophs.
Cereal seedlings begin as heterotrophs, depending totally on food mobilized from the endosperm.
Wachtershauser (1992) has suggested that primitive surface metabolists preceded cellular life and might even persist in habitats that cannot be occupied by heterotrophs.
In any case, their loss to the medium, along with any hydrogen also produced, provides an opportunity for direct coupling of phototrophs and heterotrophs living in the mat.
Trophic mutualism often occurs between an autotroph and a heterotroph.
Predation is a biological interaction where a predator (a heterotroph that is hunting) feeds on its prey (the organism that is attacked).
Although there are many examples of trophic mutualisms, the heterotroph is generally a fungus or bacteria.
