ALL ABOUT ORGANISMS

• Plants and animals are the main components of the environment. These are the hearts of the environment we protect.
• All plants and animals across the world reproduce in some way or another, as a way of bringing in new generations and slowly ushering in changes in the species.
• Some forms of the population seem similar to humanity's mating

  process most, but not all, mammalian breeding, for instance, while others seem alien by comparison.
• Reproduction and Development are crucial to maintaining a species population.
• The process of reproduction is complex and varies between different families of animals. While all species reproduce in one way or another, how the eggs are fertilized and the young come into the world differ greatly.
• Animal and plant growth and development also vary.
• Asexual reproduction involves one parent without the fusion of sperm and egg.
• Asexual reproduction is generally limited to invertebrates.
• Invertebrates that are common to reproduce asexually

  • Sea urchins
  • Starfish
  • Worms
  • Hydras
• Sexual reproduction requires a sperm to fertilize an egg, creating offspring.
• This can happen through physical contact or as in the case of

  some sea life, such as corals, sperm can be carried by the water and cause fertilization.
• Some creatures exhibit both asexual and sexual reproduction.
• Types of Sexual Reproduction:

  • Fertilization
  • Embryo Development
  • Germination and Birth
  • Maturation
• Types of Asexual Reproduction:

  • Fission
  • Budding
  • Fragmentation
  • Apomixis
• Fission is the method of asexual reproduction seen in the simplest life forms, such as the amoeba, and tends to occur rather rapidly.
• An example of fission reproduction is how cell division works which can done every 20 minutes.
• Budding occurs when a clone of the organism grows as a part of a parent organism and later divides from the parent's body as a new organism.
• Budding occurs in the following:

  • Hydras (clone)
  • Crocus (corm)
  • Potatoes (tubers)
  • Strawberries (stolons)
  • Onion (bulbs)
  • Rhizomes (iris)
• Fragmentation or regeneration occurs when a parent or an organism “loses” a body part and then regrows what is missing and becomes a new whole.
• Fragmentation occurs in planaria and starfish in common
• Asexual reproduction in plants via seeds is a natural way of cloning called apomixis, that allows plant embryos to grow from unfertilized eggs.
• Apomixis occurs commonly in dandelions
• Apomixis occurs naturally in several tropical and subtropical

  grasses, orchids, citrus plants, and wild species of crops such as

  beets, strawberries, and mangoes.
• The process of fertilization occurs in both plants and animals. There are, of course, differences in the details and mechanisms. On the other hand, some of the similarities are striking.
• One of the differences between plants and animals in regarding fertilization is that plants are, for the most part, sedentary.
• Many plants have a structure called the ovary which is the counterpart of that in animals.
• In flowering plants, there are male and female flowers. Once the pollen

  from the male flower has been transferred to the female flower, the pollen fertilizes the egg. Once fertilized, the egg begins to develop into an embryo in much the same way that an animal embryo develops
• Embryo Development occurs when an egg inside a female's ovary fertilized by a male's reproductive cell.
• Whereas a vertebrate animal begins its life by exiting the mother's womb either as an egg hatch that must further develop and hatch or as a newborn individual.
• In plants, the new plant is born by germinating from the seed. In plants and animals, part of the maturation occurs during the embryonic stage, and the remainder occurs after birth and germination, respectively.
• In maturation in both plants and animals, the individual matures to the point of being sexually mature and capable of reproduction. Once the animal is sexually mature, it can mate, or in the case of plants, carry out pollination and fertilization. This completes the cycle of reproduction of plants and animals.
• Although it occurs in animals often through artificial means, asexual reproduction is a common occurrence in plants.
• A shoot or a cutting from a living plant, whether placed in the soil artificially or through natural means, can often readily form new roots and grow into a viable new plant. When this occurs, the plant is a genetic replica, or a clone, of the parent plant. In contrast to this cloning

  or asexual reproduction, in sexual reproduction genes are exchanged and the result is more genetic variability.
• Genetic replica is from asexual reproduction while genetic variability is from sexual reproduction.
• Organisms can interact with each other to achieve sexual reproduction, or the egg and sperm can travel via other organisms or wind or water currents.
• Asexual reproduction is common between single-celled organisms
• All offspring reproduced asexually are genetically identical to their parent
• Asexual reproduction happens most frequently in lower-level organisms, such as unicellular and multicellular organisms that serve as the primary and secondary producers in an ecosystem.
• In the process of binary fission, a cell divides in half and separates so that each half becomes a new independent organism.
• In other organisms like algae and some groups of bacteria, the parent cell divides multiple times and separates into multiple identical offspring. Using multiple fission, they grow and replicate cellular DNA multiple times, they produce rapidly dozens or hundreds of smaller cells called hemocytes before they tear open and release the new organisms that are capable to live independently.