What is asexual reproduction? How does it happen?

 Asexual reproduction occurs when an organism makes more of its species without exchanging genetic information with another organism during sex. In the sexual reproduction of organisms, the parental genes fuse to create offspring with a unique gene. This is beneficial to the population because genetic or genetic diversity makes the species more resilient to survival challenges such as diseases and environmental changes.

Organisms that reproduce through asexual reproduction suffer from a serious lack of diversity, but they are also able to reproduce faster than organisms that reproduce sexually, and one individual can produce an entire population without the need for a partner.

Some organisms that practice asexual reproduction can exchange genetic information to create diversity by means of horizontal gene transfer, such as bacteria that use plasmids to pass small pieces of DNA. However, this method produces less unique genotypes compared to sexual reproduction.

Some species of plants, animals, and fungi are able to perform both methods of sexual and asexual reproduction according to the requirements of the surrounding environment. Most single-celled organisms practice asexual reproduction, such as bacteria, archaebacteria, and protists. It is also practiced by some plants, animals and fungi.

Features of asexual reproduction

 Rapid population growth. This is especially beneficial for species that adopt a survival rapid production strategy. Many types of bacteria, for example, are able to completely rebuild their population through an individual whose genes have skewed and mutated within days if the rest were eliminated by a virus.

 You do not need a partner to produce a new demographic. This is useful for species whose individuals may exist in isolation, such as fungi that grow from spores released by the wind, plants that depend on pollen to complete the sexual reproduction process, and animals that colonize sparsely populated environments.

 Less investment of resources. Asexual reproduction, which can only be completed by splitting a part of the parent being and then taking care of itself afterward, consumes fewer resources compared to raising and incubating a new child.

Many plants and marine creatures, for example, can simply cut off a portion of their ancestral organism and then that portion go on to live on its own and on its own.

Only genetically identical offspring can produce this way: take care, incubate, and create a new organism whose tissue differs from that of the parents - more time, more energy and more resources.

The ability to split simply into two is one of the reasons why asexual reproduction is faster than sexual reproduction.

Defects of asexual reproduction

The biggest drawback of asexual reproduction is the lack of diversity. Because members of the asexual reproductive population are genetically identical except for rare mutations, they are vulnerable to the same diseases, the same nutritional deficiencies, and the same kinds of other environmental hardships.

One example of the downside of asexual reproduction is the Irish Potato Famine: Irish potatoes, which reproduce by asexual reproduction, were all susceptible to a fatal potato plague that ravaged the island. As a result, almost the entire crop was destroyed, and many people starved.

Another example is the Gros-Michel banana, which has reached the point of extinction, it is one of the two large cultivated banana varieties, which soon became impossible to grow commercially in the twentieth century after the emergence of a disease to which bananas were susceptible to heredity.

In contrast, many types of bacteria actually exploit their high genetic mutation rate to create some genetic diversity at the same time as they reproduce asexually to grow their colonies by leaps and bounds. Bacteria have a higher rate of errors when they copy genetic segments, which sometimes leads to the emergence of new features even in the absence of sexual reproduction.

Types of asexual reproduction

There are several different pathways for asexual reproduction. It is as follows:

 Binary fission. In this way, the cell simply copies its DNA, divides into two, and gives a copy of its DNA to the daughter cell. This method is used in bacteria and archaea.

 Budding. Some organisms branched a small portion of them to grow that branch into a new organism. It is a method practiced by many plants and marine life, and some single-celled eukaryotes such as yeast.

 Vegetative propagation. Like budding, this process requires the growth of a new branch or branch of a plant that is capable of becoming a complete organism. Strawberries are an example of plants that reproduce using "runners" that grow out of the parent plant and then become separate, independent plants.

 Sporogenesis. Sporogenesis is the production of reproductive cells called spores that can grow into a new organism. Spores use the same seed strategies. But unlike seeds, spores can be made without the need for fertilization by a sexual partner. Also, spores are more likely to become independent when spread, for example through the wind, than relying on other organisms such as animals to carry them and then spread them later.

 Fragmentation or fragmentation. In fragmentation the progenitor organism splits into several parts, each of which grows to become the posterior, complete and independent object. This method combines budding and vegetative propagation, but with some differences.

 Fragmentation reproduction is not a voluntary act by the ancestral organism. Earthworms and many plants and marine life are able to reproduce organisms in their state from parts after exposure to injuries that separate them into several parts.

When the splitting process becomes voluntary, the same ancestral organism splits into roughly equal parts to form a number of offspring. This differs from budding and vegetative propagation, in that the organism grows smaller parts compared to the ancestor organism which later becomes its children.

Agamenogenesis. Asexual reproduction is a method of reproduction of sexual organisms without the need for fertilization. There are several ways that you can fall into it.

 Parthenogenesis, an unfertilized egg that grows into a new organism, and which necessarily contains only its mother's genes. This occurs only in a few types of animals of the female sex, and in some types of animals in which the male is not present for pollination.

 Apomoxis, which occurs when plants reproduce asexually while they reproduce in a sexual way, producing offspring that are genetically identical to the progenitor, and is caused by the lack of a male plant to pollinate the female gametes.

 Generation of the nucellar embryo. The embryo is formed from the parent's own tissue without the process of meiosis or the use of reproductive cells. This is known to occur mainly in citrus fruits, and seeds can be produced without the need for pollination by a male.

An example of asexual reproduction

Bacteria

All bacteria reproduce through asexual reproduction, as they divide into two daughter cells that are genetically identical to their parents.

Some bacteria can do what is known as horizontal gene transfer, in which genetic material is passed from one individual to another (horizontally), rather than through the parent to the offspring (vertically). Because bacteria have a single cell, they can change their genetic material as adults.

The process of exchanging genes between bacterial cells is sometimes referred to as a (sex), although it is practiced to alter the genotype of an adult bacterium and is not intended to reproduce.

Bacteria can afford to use this survival strategy because their ability to reproduce very quickly makes harmful genetic mutations - such as duplicating genetic errors or misrepresenting the horizontal gene transfer process - without significance to the population as a whole. As long as few survive mutations and disasters, this number is able to quickly reconstruct bacterial populations.

 

The strategy of "multiplying rapidly, mutating over and over" is the biggest reason for bacteria's ability to develop antibiotic resistance. In the lab, she has been seen 'inventing' new biochemicals, such as some types of bacteria that automatically acquire the ability to anaerobic respiration. This strategy won't work well in organisms that go out of their way to keep individuals in them, such as multicellular organisms.