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What is relation between sexual reproduction and evolution?

What is relation between sexual reproduction and evolution?

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RAHUL ROHILLA
askIITians Faculty 873 Points
4 years ago
Living organisms all have one thing in common - they need to reproduce. Every living thing will eventually die so it needs to create a new generation to carry on its genetic lineage. Organisms do this through either sexual or asexual reproduction.Asexual reproductionis pretty straightforward. 'A' means 'without,' so this refers to organisms that reproduce without sex, or fertilization. Instead, they might divide into two or break off a limb, which then develops into a new individual. With asexual reproduction, the offspring is an exact copy of the parent. In other words, a clone.

But withsexual reproduction, we get something quite different. In sexual reproduction, fertilization occurs, which is when two different individuals create a new offspring called azygote. Because two individuals put genetic information into the same 'pool,' the offspring is also a unique individual but still retains one half of each parent's genetic information to carry on.

Evolution of Sexual Reproduction

But what we know today as sexual reproduction wasn't always the way it was. Obviously, sexual reproduction didn't just occur out of nowhere, like everything else, it has evolved and changed over time. The exact mechanisms for how sexual reproduction came about are still not fully understood because this is not something that is easily tested in experiments. So instead, scientists try to understand how sexual reproduction works now, how it evolves from this point forward, and why sexual reproduction continues to be a prominent method for many organisms.

We do think that sexual reproduction has influenced some really interesting stuff. For example,sexual dimorphism, which is the difference between sexes within a species, has probably evolved as a result of evolution in sexual reproduction. In many species, males and females look very different and have very different roles as parents, and scientists believe sexual reproduction is at least partly responsible for these differences.

There are also many differences in sexual reproduction among different species. For example, earthworms arehermaphroditic, meaning that they have both male and female reproductive structures. This doesn't mean that they self-fertilize, but it does mean that everyone out there is a potential mate! This significantly reduces the energy it would take to find a suitable partner, increasing your ability to reproduce and create the next generation.
Mahima Kanawat
1010 Points
4 years ago
Dear student 
For sexual reproduction gametes are formed from meiosis. In meiosis crossing over and recombination occurs that creates variations.
These variations accumulated from generations cause evolution. 
WITH REGARDS 
MAHIMA 
ASKIITIANS FORUM EXPERT 

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