Reproduction Flashcards
What is sexual reproduction
The creation of offspring by fusion of a male gamete and female gamete to form a zygote
Asexual Reproduction
Creation of offspring without the fusion of egg and sperm
4 types of asexual reproduction
Fission, Budding, Fragmentation, Parthenogenesis
What is fission and what animals use it
Adult organisms can simply split and divide into two individuals. These individuals can then move apart and continue living
- Cnidarians
What is Budding and what animals use it
Form of asexual reproduction where a bud forms that develops into an adult and breaks away from the main body
- Hydra
Fragmentation
This is an emergency form of reproduction where and adult undergoes physical trauma and regenerates after this - forming body from cinched head/tail.
- Planaria, Sea urchin/stars
Parthenogenesis
No fertilisation of female gamete. Offspring are identical to their mother (clones) as the egg alone is sufficient to develop into an adult organism
- Some lizards, hymenopterans, aphids, spiders, molluscs, fish
Clone
Group of genetically identical individuals from the same parent
What is an allele
Particular gene variant at a locus
What is phenotype determined by
The sum of an individuals alleles
What is a locus
A genes specific position along a chromosome
What are genes
Units of heredity that are made up of DNA segments
Diplod cell
2 copies of each chromosome
Haploid
1 copy of each chromosome
What is fertilization
Union of gametes
Why is meiosis required in sexual reproduction (not involving variation)
In sexual reproduction, meiosis is required to halve the amount of DNA in the gametes so that the amount of DNA after fertilisation is diploid, the required condition for all somatic ells
Two important changes in meiosis compared to mitotic reproduction
- Change in ploidy: go from diploid to haploid
- End up with 4 genetically different daugjter cells
3 aspects of fertilisation/meiosis that are responsible for variation
Independent assortment
Crossing over
Random fertilisation
What is independent assortment
Homologous pairs of chromosomes orient randomly at metaphase I of meiosis
In independent assortment, each pair of chromosomes sorts maternal and paternal homologs into daughter cells independently of the other pairs
What is crossing over
Recombining chromosomes, contributes to genetic variation by combining DNA from two parents into a single chromosome
What is random fertilisation
Any sperm can fuse with any ovum
How does variation arise in zygote
In humans, the fusion of two gametes (each with 8.4 million possible chromosome combinations from independent assortment) produces a zygote with any of about 70 trillion diploid combinations
Crossing over adds even more variation
Benefit of sexual reproduction
Increase genetic variation
Why is variation in heritable traits important
Allow adaptive evolution to occur
Why do sexually reproducing organisms have an advantage
When the environment changes rapidly, sexually reproducing organisms adapt faster than asexual organisms and thus outcompete them
Downside of asexual reproduction
Although asexual reproduction involves less energy to produce offspring, the species have a limited lifespan and will eventually die out. They eventually hit a change in their conditions that they cannot adapt to due to lack of variety between individuals
Monoecy/hermaphrodism
two sexes in the same individual
Dioecy
Specialised to produce only one type of gamete
Disadvantage of dioecy (3)
- Less efficient as only half of offspring can produce offspring (cost of males)
- Less efficient as energy wasted on mating (finding a mate, ensuring sperm finds egg,
- disastrous if isolated, features can be selected for (deer antlers) that may reduces survivor hood of males but is required to gain attention from females)
Disadvantage of Monoecy (loss of varation)
1/2 of animal species that undergo monoecious reproduction show between 20 and 80% selfing rates (own sperm fertilising own eggs)
- If a male and female gamete from an individual fuse, it will get a loss of variation
Disadvantage of Monoecy (energetically costly)
- Costly in terms of having to produce both male and female gametes (can be partially overcome by sequential hermaphrodism (switch dependant on size)