Overview of Sexual Reproduction

Question 1

What are the male and female sex cells/gametes?

Answer 1

In females the gametes are eggs (oocytes)

In males the gametes are sperm (spermatocytes)

Question 2

What is cross fertilization and what does it enable?

Answer 2

Half of an offspring’s genes are inherited from each parent. This allows for variation because offspring has a different combination of genes than either parent.

Question 3

What the the male and female gonads?

Answer 3

Testes in males

Ovaries in females

Question 4

What kind of cells produce sperm and eggs?

Answer 4

These gametes are produced by germ cells, cells set aside early in development for this specific purpose. The other cells in a gonad support and nourish the developing gametes or produce hormones necessary to the reproductive process.

Question 5

What happens when gametes mature?

Answer 5

There are two cell divisions- mitosis produces 2 new gametes that have the full set of 46 chromosomes.
The second division is known as meiosis, which only occurs in reproductive cells. The second time the gametes divide they form four gametes with only half of the chromosomes that a regular cell contains.

Question 6

How many chromosomes do human cells typically have

? How many chromosomes do gametes have?

Answer 6

46 chromosomes in human cells but gametes only have 23 chromosomes.

Question 7

How is gender determined ?

Answer 7

Males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome; whereas, females have two X chromosomes. Therefore the gender of a couple’s offspring is determined by the father’s sperm cell (whether the offspring receives an X or Y chromosome from the sperm cell).

Question 8

What do the chromosomes determine?

Answer 8

The characteristics of the offspring such as eye and skin color.

Question 9

what is copulation?

Answer 9

the sexual union to facilitate the reception of sperm by a female