Researchers have discovered a small community of bacteria living in a most unlikely place: the placenta, the organ that nourishes a developing fetus through the umbilical cord.
The mother plant bulks up the endosperm with her own resources to nourish the baby plant, much like a yolk feeds a developing chick.
For example, despite an anautogenous female mosquito's need for a bloodmeal to nourish her developing eggs, it is the simple nectar of plants that fuels her flight muscles and daily energy needs.
During lactation, the mammary gland must tightly regulate the accumulation, production and the ultimate secretion of a complex mixture of nutrients and non-nutritive factors into milk to nourish the developing offspring.
Angiogenesis, or the remodeling of existing vasculature serves as a lifeline to nourish developing embryos and starved tissues, and to accelerate wound healing, diabetic retinopathy, and tumor progression.
A clitellum, which forms only during the reproductive period, secretes the cocoon and material (albumin) to nourish the developing young.
Placental mammals nourish the developing embryo using the mother's blood supply, allowing longer gestation times.
In most cheilostomes the egg at transfer has sufficient yolk to nourish its developing embryo, but in the cheilostomes Bugula and Celleporella the egg, which is small at transfer, establishes a pseudoplacenta with tissues of the mother zooid and receives nourishment as the embryo develops.
Some species eject unfertilized ova into the water, while others keep their ova in brood chambers until they hatch, and some of these species use placenta-like organs to nourish the developing eggs.
The early vertebrate germ embryo is surrounded by trophoblastic tissues, which are specialized devices developed by the germ to nourish the developing embryo.
