Reproduction

One of the primary goals of all living creatures is to survive. To do so, cells must be able to reproduce. There are several advantages to reproduction over simply sustaining the status quo. First, reproduction allow a specie of cells to increase its population and subsequently have a higher competitive advantage. Second, sexual reproduction can help to introduce genetic variation into a specie which can be beneficial in the long run. One example of this genetic variation might be the difference in looks between you and your parents.

Cells can reproduce in two ways, mitosis and meiosis. In mitosis, the resulting daughter cell is an identical clone of the original cell. Mitosis is mostly used by somatic cells (cells of the body). Meiosis, however, is a form of sexual reproduction and only occurs in gametes (reproductive cells). The resulting daughter cells have different genetic information than their parent cells. This method of reproduction is especially important in the continuation of the specie when the environmental condition changes.

To learn more about the two forms of reproduction, choose from the two links below:

	Mitosis Mitosis is an important step of the cell cycle. Click here to find out the effect of cells that undergo mitosis.
	Meiosis Organisms depend on sexual reproduction for genetic variation. Find out what causes the variations to form.
	Mitosis vs. Meiosis What are the similarities? What are the differences? Click here to find out.