Reproductive Technologies

Question 1

What are reproductive technologies?

Answer 1

methods of exploiting natural processes and intervening with reproduction

Question 3

In what area is reproductive technologies widely used and for what?

Answer 3

in agriculture, to produce better livestock and crops and increase yields and tolerance of environmental factors

Question 4

What are the positive outcomes of reproductive technologies?

Answer 4

• producing offspring with desirable characteristics
• overcoming geographical barriers between organisms
• improving the rate of reproductive success

Question 5

What’s an example of reproductive technologies producing offspring with desirable characteristics?

Answer 5

AGRICULTURE
-both artificial insemination and artificial pollination are used to produce crops and livestock with characteristics that lead to increased profits, at a faster rate.

a farmer can buy semen from a ram with high-quality wool and use it to impregnate his own female sheep to produce offspring with higher quality wool. The wool can be sold for more, increasing income for the farmer

Question 6

What’s an example of reproductive technologies overcoming geographical barriers between organisms?

Answer 6

semen and pollen can be transported large distances, which allows genes to be spread across the world, which increases biodiversity.
especially for WILD LIFE CONSERVATION where individuals may not be able to be moved that far to reproduce.

Question 7

Pandas?

Answer 7

pandas are very hard to breed in captivity because they barely mate + and females are fertile for a relatively short time. So artificial insemination allows panda sperm to be transported overseas, which pretty much saves pandas from extinction

Question 8

What’s an example of reproductive technologies improving reproduction rates? (apple trees)

Answer 8

In wildlife conservation and captive breeding programs,
allows reproduction when a male and female are unable to have intercourse to reproduce (just can’t or low sperm count or femal has endometriosis)
ESPECIALLY:
apple trees, which must be pollinated by other apple trees of the same species (instead of self pollinating like others). Artificial pollination allows apple trees to be pollinated much quicker than waiting for the right pollen to be transferred on the wind or by pollinators like bees, reducing harvest time

Question 9

In what areas is artificial insemination commonly used and how/why?

Answer 9

in medical and veterinary purposes, especially in animal breeding (e.g cattle)
- to forcibly breed organisms with desirable traits in the hopes that their offspring will develop these traits.
- to synchronise births in the livestock industry
- to avoid injuries during mating

Question 10

What is artificial insemination?

Answer 10

deliberately and without sexual intercourse (ARTIFICIAL) introducing male sperm into the female reproductive tract (REPRODUCTION)

Question 11

What is the process of artificial insemination?

Answer 11

1. sperm is extracted
2. sperm is processed
3. sperm is inserted into the uterus

Question 12

What are the positives of being able to transport frozen sperm?

Answer 12

• large animals do not have to be transported lond distances to reproduce
• cost effective
• reduces danger of injury to animals during travel
  -reduces risk of danger to animals while mating
• many females can be inseminated
• can be frozen indefinitely, so a male can still produce offspring many years after they have died (American bull Toystory fathered 500,000 daughters in 50 countries)

Question 13

What is artificial insemination doing for wildlife conservation?

Answer 13

increases the number of endangered species (first artificial insemination fo a shark was performed to try and combat dwindling numbers of grey nurse shark. Technique not perfected though)

Question 14

What are the negatives of artificial insemination?

Answer 14

• costly (need special equipment)
• time consuming
• can cause injurt to the female if done incorrectly
• REDUCTION IN GENETIC DIVERSITY within populations

Question 15

What is considered the main method of assisted reproductive technology in the world for many types of cattle, sheep and pigs and performance + sport horses?

Answer 15

artificial insemination

Question 16

The _____ of artificial insemination far outweigh the _____ (disadvantages/advantages)

Answer 16

The advantages of artificial insemination far outweigh the disadvantages

Question 17

Artificial insemination and pollination are both involve humans changing the
genetic composition of a population, by SELECTING individuals with favourable traits and carrying out CONTROLLED/forced breeding of these individuals. So both artificial pollination and insemination are considered what what…?

Answer 17

selective breeding techniques

Question 18

What is an issue with both artificial insemination and artificial pollination in terms of what alleles will over time increase in frequency?

Answer 18

• using these selective reprodutive technologies on a population menas the alleles that will appear more frequently in the gene pool of a population will be those selected by the breeded, not by nature
• BUT, bad news is that means that an individual’s survival and reproduction within a population depends on them having alleles that make them useful to humans (or increase the output of a product that is useful to humans) INSTEAD of alleles that increase their suitability to their environment or increase their reproductive success.

Question 19

What is artificial pollination?

Answer 19

when humans deliberately and manually (ARTIFICIAL) transferring pollen from the stamen (male part) of one flower to the stigma (female part) of another flower. The flowers can be on the same plant (self-pollination) or on a different plant (cross-pollination)

Question 21

What is the process of artificial pollination?

Answer 21

1. pollen (sperm) is removed from the stamen of one plant
2. the pollen is applied to the stigma of another plant
3. pollen fertilises the ovum

Question 22

How is artificial pollination used in agriculture?

Answer 22

in agriculture to:
- deliberately produce hybrids for selective breeding
- to ensure the max percentage of plants in a crop are pollinated and can produce (increase crop yield and profitability)
- produce new species of plants with desirable characteristics

Question 23

What is a positive outcome of artifiical pollination?

Answer 23

• can create plant hybrids with stronger favourable traits, e.g a plant with increased productivity, more than both parents

Question 24

What do artificial pollination and artificial insemination have in common?

Answer 24

humans manually facilitate the process of reproducing
(also the male to female part)

Question 25

What are the two methods of artificial pollination?

Answer 25

1) Mechanical pollination
2) Hand pollination

Question 26

What is mechanical pollination?

Answer 26

large amounts of pollen are either

1) released from aeroplanes
2) released from blowers directly onto the plants

Question 27

What are the advantages of pollinating mechanically?

Answer 27

• (relatively) quick
• minimal labour

Question 28

What are the disadvantages of mechanical pollination?

Answer 28

• not many flowers are successfully pollinated (basically it’s pretty inaccurate)

Question 29

Why would mechanical pollination have the disadvantages that it does?

Answer 29

Just think about it.

Question 29

Hybrid plants are produced by…?

Answer 29

artificial pollination

Question 30

What is artificial hand pollination?

Answer 30

a person used a small brush to transfer pollen between flowers

Question 31

What is a disadvantage of hand pollination?

Answer 31

• (very) labour intensive

Question 32

What is an advantage of hand pollination?

Answer 32

has a much higher accuracy rate between mechanical pollination

Question 33

What plants have humans been artificially pollinating for years and why?

Answer 33

Almond crops and date crops, for thousands of years, to ensure a greater yield of crop and seeds

Question 34

Most crops depend on pollination by?

Answer 34

insects

Question 35

What is the effect of insufficient pollination?

Answer 35

it will reduce fruit and seed yield, and can affect the quality of offspring in both growth rate and resistance to herbivores

Question 36

Is there a difference in hand-pollinated vs insect pollinated plants?

Answer 36

research shows Insect-pollinated plants have larger fruit and greater seed germination rates

Question 37

Why would scientists be looking at other methods of pollination (name one) apart from natural?

Answer 37

scientists are looking at drone pollinators, because natural insect pollinators (basically bees) populations are declining

Question 38

What are some things that artificial insemination and artificial pollination can be used for?

Answer 38

• producing offspring with desirable characteristics
• overcoming geographical barriers between organisms
  improving the rate of reproductive success

Question 39

What’s an example (each ) of how artificial insemination and pollination can be used to:
produce offspring with desirable characteristics

Answer 39

a ram with high quality wool could be used to impregnan

Question 40

What are the positive outcomes of artificial insemination?

Answer 40

• large numbers of more desirable animals
• global benefits from storage and transprt of semen

Question 41

What is a negative outcome of artificial insemination?

Answer 41

less genetic diversity/variation, so an increase in homogeneous populations that may cause issues for a species survival in the long term

Question 42

What’s an example of artificial pollination use? (hint G.M)

Answer 42

used by Gregor Mendel in his pea-plant experiment to trace the inheritance patterns of of visible traits

Question 43

What is a negative outcome of artificial pollination?

Answer 43

• can create populations with little genetic diversity, so vulnerable to environmental changes
• natural varieties of plants are lost due to competition
• biodiversity is reduced

Question 44

What is the impact of artificial pollination on genetic composition?

Answer 44

(1) increases
genetic variability/variation within populations due to the creation of hybrid species + new varieties of plants that introduces new combinations of alleles into the gene pool of a population. These new gene combos can be passed on if hybrids are fertile, increasing the frequency of this gene and altering the genetic composition of the population
- e.g. wheat hybrid called Federation is a cross of Purple Straw and Yandilla
(2), but its overuse can lead to crops that are
too similar, thus reducing biodiversity.

Question 45

How does fertility change for offspring with hybridisation within species vs across species?

Answer 45

in hybridisation within a species, the resulting hybrids are fertile, as opposed to hybridisation across species,
where the offspring are usually infertile.)

Question 46

The corn
blight that occurred in the USA in 1970 is an example of…?

Answer 46

the impact of reduced genetic diversity and
increased susceptibility to disease in a crop species

Question 47

A corn hybrid has been produced to have…?

Answer 47

increased growth rate,
greater uniformity
increased yield