Sexual Reproduction Research Paper

Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction in which two different cells combine, which create an offspring. When two cells called the egg for female, and sperm for male, combine and join together they create a new organism called a zygote. During meiosis, one diploid cell divides and makes four haploid sex cells. Meiosis has two divisions of the cytoplasm and the nucleus, the divisions are called Meiosis I and Meiosis II. Reproductive cells go through interphase before meiosis. “ A reproductive cell goes through interphase before beginning meiosis”.p.238 para 1 . There are four phases of meiosis 1, which are prophase 1, Metaphase 1, Anaphase 1 , and Telophase 1. For Meiosis 2, it also has four phases, Prophase 2, Metaphase 2, Anaphase …show more content…
They have many advantages and disadvantages. An advantage of sexual reproduction is that it creates genetic variation in the offspring. If the environment changes, the offspring will most likely have a better chance of survival. Another advantage is that the “.... offspring inherit half their DNA from each parent.” (page 242). It creates a different set of traits for each offspring, which leads to genetic variation. Another advantage is selective breeding. Selective breeding occurs when farmers choose which traits they want their plants to grow by planting them in separate areas than the other plants. They then create different plants. Although there are many advantages to sexual reproduction, there are some disadvantages. A disadvantage is that it takes time for an organism to grow and develop before they can produce sex cells. Another disadvantage is that it also takes time to find a mate. An organism can get exposed to predators and lose a lot of energy. In addition, “...fertilization cannot take place during pregnancy.” (page 243). Pregnancy can sometimes take two years for some mammals. Sexual Reproduction is great but so is asexual reproduction. There are so many advantages and disadvantages in asexual reproduction. For instance, in asexual reproduction, the advantages are that you don’t have to find a mate. It can be hard for an organism to find a mate so when asexual reproduction occurs it can be a lot easier. In asexual reproduction, the organism doesn’t have to carry the offspring for along period of time. Also another advantage is that it “... enables some organisms to rapidly a large number of offspring.” (page 254). Another advantage of asexual reproduction is that the offspring are identical to the organism that the offspring came from. Now for the disadvantages of asexual reproduction, are that even though they are identical to each other it is also bad. This could lead to the population decreasing