Final answer:
Plants use vascular tissues, xylem and phloem, not a circulatory system, to transport nutrients and excrete wastes. Xylem carries water and mineral nutrients from roots to other parts of plants and phloem transports photosynthates from leaves to other areas of the plant. Plants also rely on processes like photosynthesis and cellular respiration for this transport.
Step-by-step explanation:
Plants, unlike animals, do not have a circulatory system to transport nutrients and waste. Instead, they make use of their own unique transport system – a network made up of vascular tissues known as the xylem and phloem.
Xylem, one of the two forms of transport tissue in vascular plants, is responsible for the conduction of water and mineral nutrients from the roots to different parts of the plant. On the other hand, phloem is the living tissue that transports the soluble organic compounds made during photosynthesis and known as photosynthates, from the leaves to other parts of the plant where needed or stored.
Plants also use other mechanisms similar to osmoregulation for the transport of water and nutrients such as the processes of photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and coevolution with mutualistic bacteria and fungi. The physical separation of xylem and phloem in plant cells enables simultaneous movement of different nutrients from roots to shoots and vice versa.
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