Asexual Reproduction

Asexual reproduction is the formation of new individuals from the cell(s) of a single
parent.
It is very common in plants; less so in animals.
Asexual Reproduction in Plants
All plant organs have been used for asexual reproduction, but stems are the most
common.
Stems
In some species, stems arch over and take
root at their tips, forming new plants.
he hori!ontal above"ground stems (called
stolons) of the strawberry (shown here)
produce new daughter plants at alternate
nodes.
#nderground stems
rhi!omes
bulbs
corms and
tubers
are used for asexual reproduction as well as for food storage.
Irises and day lilies, for example, spread rapidly by the growth of their rhi!omes.
Leaves
his photo shows the leaves of the
common ornamental plant $ryophyllum
(also called %alancho&) . 'itosis at
meristems along the leaf margins
produce tiny plantlets that fall off and
can take up an independent existence.
Roots
(ome plants use their roots for asexual reproduction. he dandelion is a common
example. rees, such as the poplar or aspen, send up new stems from their roots. In
time, an entire grove of trees may form ) all part of a clone of the original tree.
Plant Propagation
*ommercially"important plants are often deliberately propagated by
asexual means in order to keep particularly desirable traits (e.g.,
flower color, flavor, resistance to disease).
*uttings may be taken from the parent and rooted +'ore,.
Grafting is widely used to propagate a desired variety of shrub or
tree. All apple varieties, for example, are propagated this way.
Apple seeds are planted only for the root and stem system that grows from them.
After a year-s growth, most of the stem is removed and a twig (scion) taken from a
mature plant of the desired variety is inserted in a notch in the cut stump (the stock).
(o long the cambiums of scion and stock are united and precautions are taken to
prevent infection and drying out, the scion will grow. It will get all its water and
minerals from the root system of the stock. .owever, the fruit that it will eventually
produce with be identical (assuming that it is raised under similar environmental
conditions) to the fruit of the tree from which the scion was taken.
Apomixis
*itrus trees and many other species of angiosperms use their seeds as a method of
asexual reproduction; a process called apomixis.
In one form, the egg is formed with 2n chromosomes and develops without
ever being fertili!ed.
In another version, the cells of the ovule (2n) develop into an embryo instead
of ) or in addition to ) the fertili!ed egg.
.ybridi!ation between different species often yields infertile offspring. +/ink to a
discussion of this post!ygotic isolating mechanism.,s $ut in plants, this does not
necessarily doom the offspring. 'any such hybrids use apomixis to propagate
themselves.
he many races of %entucky bluegrass growing in lawns across 0orth America and
the many races of blackberries are two examples of sterile hybrids that propagate
successfully by apomixis.
1ecently, an example of apomixis in gymnosperms was discovered (see 2ichot, *., et
al, in the 3 4uly 5667 issue of Nature). In a rare cypress, the pollen grains are diploid,
not haploid, and can develop into an embryo when they land on either
the female cones of their own species (rare) or
those of a much more common species of cypress.
Is this paternal apomixis in a surrogate mother a desperate attempt to avoid
extinction8
Breeding apomictic crop plants
'any valuable crop plants (e.g., corn) cannot be propagated by asexual methods like
grafting.
Agricultural scientists would dearly love to convert these plants to apomixis9 making
embryos that are genetic clones of themselves rather than the product of sexual
reproduction with its inevitable gene reshuffling. After 56 years of work, an apomictic
corn (mai!e) has been produced, but it does not yet produce enough viable kernels to
be useful commercially.
Asexual Reproduction in Animals
Budding
.ere, offspring develop as a growth on the body of the parent.
In some species, e.g., :ellyfishes and many echinoderms, the buds break away and
take up an independent existence.
In others, e.g., corals, the buds remain attached to the parent and the process results in
colonies of animals.
$udding is also common among parasitic animals, e.g., tapeworms.
/ink to two examples.
Fragmentation
As certain tiny worms grow to full si!e, they spontaneously break up into ; or <
pieces. =ach of these fragments develops into a mature worm, and the process is
repeated.
Parthenogenesis
In parthenogenesis (>virgin birth>), the females produce eggs, but these develop into
young without ever being fertili!ed.
2arthenogenesis occurs in some fishes, several kinds of insects, and a few species of
frogs and li!ards. It does not normally occur in mammals because of their imprinted
genes. .owever, using special manipulations to circumvent imprinting, laboratory
mice have been produced by parthenogenesis. +/ink,
In a few nonmammalian species it is the only method of reproduction, but more
commonly animals turn to parthenogenesis only under certain circumstances.
=xamples9
Aphids use parthenogenesis in the spring when they find themselves with
ample food. In this species, reproduction by parthenogenesis is more rapid
than sexual reproduction, and the use of this mode of asexual reproduction
permits the animals to ?uickly exploit the available resources.
@emale %omodo dragons (the largest li!ard) can produce offspring by
parthenogenesis when no male is available for sexual reproduction. heir
offspring are homo!ygous at every locus including having identical sex
chromosomes. hus the females produce all males because, unlike mammals,
females are the heterogametic sex (AB) while males are homogametic (AA).
2arthenogenesis is forced on some species of wasps when they become infected with
bacteria (in the genus ol!achia). Bolbachia can pass to a new generation through
eggs, but not through sperm, so it is advantageous to the bacterium for females to be
made rather that males.
In these wasps (as in honeybees),
fertili!ed eggs (diploid) become females;
unfertili!ed (haploid) eggs become males.
.owever, in Bolbachia"infected females, all their eggs undergo endoreplication
producing diploid eggs that develop into females without fertili!ation; that is, by
parthenogenesis.
reating the wasps with an antibiotic kills off the bacteria and >cures> the
parthenogenesisC
Apis mellifera capensis
Dccasionally worker honeybees develop ovaries and lay unfertili!ed eggs. #sually
these are haploid, as you would expect, and develop into males. .owever, workers of
the subspecies Apis mellifera capensis (the *ape honeybee) can lay unfertili!ed
diploid eggs that develop into females (who continue the practice). he eggs are
produced by meiosis, but then the polar body nucleus fuses with the egg nucleus
restoring diploidy (5n). (he phenomenon is called automictic thel"tok".)
h" choose asexual reproduction#
2erhaps the better ?uestion is9 h" not#
After all, asexual reproduction would seem a more efficient way to reproduce and
avoids all sorts of problems.
2erhaps sexual reproduction has kept in style because it provides a mechanism to
weed out harmful mutations that arise in the population (through the recombination
process of meiosis).
$vidence (from 2aland and /ynch in the 7E @ebruary 566F issue of Science)9
(ome strains of the water flea %aphnia pulex (a tiny crustacean) reproduce sexually,
others asexually. he asexual strains accumulate deleterious mutations in their
mitochondrial genes four times as fast as the sexual strains.
$ut there are many examples of populations that thrive without sex, at least while
they live in a stable environment.
2erhaps it is the ability to adapt to a changing environment that has caused sex to
remain the method of choice for most living things.
$vidence (from Goddard et al. in the H7 'arch 5663 issue of Nature)9
$udding yeast missing two genes essential for meiosis adapt less rapidly to growth
under harsh conditions than an otherwise identical strain that can undergo genetic
recombination. #nder good conditions, both strains grow e?ually well.
An asexual population tends to be genetically static. 'utant alleles appear but remain
forever associated with the particular alleles present in the rest of that genome. =ven a
beneficial mutation will be doomed to extinction if trapped along with genes that
reduce the fitness of that population.
$ut with the genetic recom!ination provided by sex, new alleles can be shuffled into
different combinations with all the other alleles available to the genome of that
species. A beneficial mutation that first appears alongside harmful alleles can, with
recombination, soon find itself in more fit genomes that will enable it to spread
through a sexual population.
$vidence (from 1ice and *hippindale in the 7< Dctober 5667 issue of Science)9
#sing experimental Irosophila populations, they found that a beneficial mutation
introduced into chromosomes that can recombine did ) over time ) increase in
fre?uency more rapidly than the same mutation introduced into chromosomes that
could not recombine.
(o sex provides a mechanism for testing ne& com!inations of alleles for their
possible usefulness to the phenotype9
deleterious alleles weeded out by natural selection;
useful ones retained by natural selection.
(ome organisms may still gain the benefits of genetic recombination while avoiding
sex. 'any mycorrhi!al fungi use asexual reproduction only. .owever, at least two
species have been shown to have multiple ) similar ) copies of the same gene; that
is, are polyploid. 2erhaps recombination between these (during mitosis8) enables
these organisms to avoid the ha!ards of accumulating deleterious mutations. ((ee the
paper by 2awlowska and aylor in the 7< @eb 566J issue of Nature.)
he speed with which parasites like bacteria and viruses can change their virulence
may provide the strongest need for their hosts to have the ability to make new gene
combinations. (o sex may be virtually universal because of the never"ending need to
keep up with changes in parasites.
$vidence'
(ome parasites interfere with sexual reproduction in their host9
o Bolbachia"induced parthenogenesis discussed above is an example.
o (everal types of fungi block wind pollination of their grass hosts
forcing them to inbreed with its resulting genetic uniformity.
here is some evidence that genetically uniform populations are at increased
risk of devastating epidemics and population crashes.
@lour beetles (ribolium castaneum) parasiti!ed by the microsporidium
0osema whitei increase the rate of recombination during meiosis.
he idea that a constantly"changing environment, especially with respect to parasites,
drives evolution is often called the Red (ueen hypothesis. It comes from /ewis
*arroll-s book Through the Looking Glass, where the 1ed Kueen says >0ow here, you
see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place>.