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Middle school biology - NGSS
Unit 2: Lesson 1
Sexual and asexual reproductionSexual and asexual reproduction
Organisms reproduce, either sexually or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring. Created by Khan Academy.
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- How do plants evolve if they have the same genes?(6 votes)
- Sometimes the plant doesn't reproduce it quite right, this is called a mutation(3 votes)
- Are there any types of reproduction that involves three parents?(0 votes)
- Yes, that actually is a thing. Know as three-parent baby, human offspring produced from the genetic material of one man and two women through the use of assisted reproductive technologies, specifically mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) and three-person in vitro fertilization (IVF). This is actually a really new technology, with it's first experiments in the late 90's and early 21st century. This can also be used in case a woman is infertile or has a genetic disease, but still wants to reproduce. Even though this technology sounds cool, this is very dangerous, and it's use is restricted pretty much anywhere around the world. I hope this helps. Thanks Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/three-parent-baby(5 votes)
- how do baby plants grow on there parents(1 vote)
- The plant shown at that part of the video was a type of succulent: the way it works for those is basically as if the parent plant grew a new leaf: it grows a small clump of leaves that can fall off or be removed, and then grow on it's own as a new plant. Sometimes, you can even take a single leaf and replant it and it grows as a whole new plant!(2 votes)
- how do plants eat(1 vote)
- how do we eat wan we r ft brn how to eat(1 vote)
- Is sexual reproduction how me and all these other students and even teacher how are living right now?(1 vote)
- so if my dad has green eyes and my mom has bluje i would have blue eyes(1 vote)
- For sexual reproduction, what if theyre twins?(0 votes)
- What are energy points and what do they do?(0 votes)
- You can get new avatars with them(0 votes)
- Are those the only 2 ways of reproduction?(0 votes)
- Yes there are! There is asexual reproduction where only one parent is involved in making offspring and then the second way is sexual reproduction where two parents are involved in creating offspring. I hope this helps!(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Narrator] The planet we live on is full of life and has been
for billions of years. Living things on earth
have existed for as long as they have, because life
found a way to create life. Sounds crazy, right? To put it another way, living things found ways to reproduce, creating offspring that can then go on to reproduce themselves, but what exactly is reproduction? Well, reproduction is the
process of making new organisms. This happens when parent
organisms reproduce to form offspring. During reproduction, organisms pass their genetic information on to their offspring. This genetic information
provides blueprints for how the offspring
will grow and develop and it's how traits get
passed on from one generation to the next. There are two main ways
organisms on earth reproduce. This is through asexual
reproduction or sexual reproduction. Let's start off by breaking
down asexual reproduction first. In asexual reproduction,
only one parent is involved in producing offspring. Due to this, the
offspring will inherit all of their genes from that single parent. This means that asexual
reproduction produces offspring that are genetically
identical to their parent, or in other words, they have
the same collection of genes. Various kinds of microorganisms, plants, and even animals are able
to reproduce asexually. An example of asexual reproduction in microorganisms can be seen in bacteria. This is due to their
use of a specific type of asexual reproduction
called binary fission. During this process, a single bacteria cell
grows, copies its genes, and divides into two identical cells, kind of like a copy machine. Plants are able to
reproduce asexually too. For example, some plants
grow their offspring off of themselves. In fact, in many succulents, you can see baby plants growing
off of their parent plant. These babies have the same
genes as their parent plant and can grow on their own if you remove them and plant them in soil. Finally, and interestingly, there are various animals
that can reproduce asexually. One example is seen in
starfish or sea stars. Some species of starfish can split into multiple parts that
then grow into new starfish and, since they have the same genes, each new starfish is a
clone of its original. Now that we've covered
asexual reproduction, let's move on to sexual reproduction. Unlike asexual reproduction,
sexual reproduction involves two parents producing
an offspring together instead of one. This is important because it means that the
offspring will inherit half of their genes from one parent and half of their genes from the other. Because of this, a sexual
reproduction produces offspring that are genetically distinct or have a different combination of genes compared to either parent. With this, because of the
way the genes are passed on, there are tons of different combinations of genes that can be received
from the two parents. In other words, this means that sexual reproduction creates
offspring that show a lot of genetic variation
between their siblings. To better understand this, let's take a look at my own dogs. They're brother and sister, so they share the same
parents, which I've drawn here. As you've probably noticed,
my dogs look pretty different from each other. One of the most notable
differences though is how one of them received genes from this parent that gave them markings above their eyes that kind of looked like
eyebrows while the other did not. And while it's easy to
spot genetic differences, like my dog's eyebrows, genetic variation goes
way deeper than dog's fur. It's what makes sexual
reproduced organisms genetically distinct from each other and gives the building
blocks to who they are. And with that, you now know the difference between asexual and sexual reproduction. Let's do a quick overview of
what you've learned today. Living organisms reproduce
to create offspring through either asexual
or sexual reproduction. Asexual reproduction
involves only one parent meaning the parent and offspring
will have identical genes. Sexual reproduction involves two parents and results in offspring
that are genetically unique compared to either
parent and this all goes to show how fantastically unique life on earth is. Though organisms may differ in the ways that they've
been able to reproduce as seen in the examples between bacteria, succulents,
starfish, and dogs, these organisms, as
with all living things, share the ability to create more life just as all life has shared for billions of years here on this planet.