We explain what is the reproduction of plants, both sexual and asexual. Also, what are angiosperms and gymnosperms.
What is plant reproduction?
All the living beings possess some kind of reproduction, that is, a mechanism to continue the species and guarantee the preservation of its genetic content, in which its biological wealth is found. In the case of living beings in the vegetal kingdomThis reproduction occurs through very specific modes, which can be sexual or asexual.
The reproduction of plants, therefore, depends to a large extent on the plant species in question: the different types of plants they vary enormously in terms of structures, behaviors and, therefore, reproductive methods.
The immense diversity of species in many cases allows both sexual and asexual reproduction, depending on the environmental conditions. Furthermore, many species of plants are hermaphrodites.
However, broadly speaking, plant reproduction can be differentiated into:
- Angiosperms. They are plants with flowers and fruits.
- Gymnosperms. They are plants without flowers. This group in turn can be distinguished from mosses (bryophytes) and ferns (tracheophytes), which do not have seeds and therefore reproduce asexually.
In both groups, the presence of seeds is almost always evidence of a method of sexual reproduction (even if it is with itself, given the hermaphroditism).
Sexual reproduction of plants
As in the animals, the sexual reproduction in plants it requires the union of two gametes (female and male), which are produced in the sexual organs of plants: stamen and stigma, respectively.
These haploid gametes are usually brought together by the action of insects or pollinators (such as bees), which transport pollen full of gametes from one plant to another, thus allowing fertilization. In other cases the wind fulfills this role, especially for mushrooms, mosses and ferns that also have sexual reproduction through spores.
Once the plant is fertilized with the pollen of another, within the flower a zygote is produced that gathers the genetic characteristics of its two parents (sexual variability) and that is eventually covered with a protective shell, constituting a seed.
Then, in angiospermias, a fruit is created around it, so that the animals eat it and transport it to other places away from the parent plant, or the seeds will be released when environment, so that they germinate where they achieve the ideal conditions and the cycle can begin again.
A single plant germinates from each seed, whose genome is unique and different from that of the other seeds in its litter.
Asexual reproduction of plants
Refering to asexual reproductionObviously, it does not present genetic variability, so it does not require pollination or fertilization. Instead, it is carried out through different mechanisms, such as:
- Sporulation. This is the name given to the generation of spores, which can be of very different types, and which are prepared to resist adverse environmental conditions until there is enough moisture to germinate. These spores possess the entire genome of their parent and will therefore create individuals identical to this, that is, clones, which will perpetuate the colony.
- Gemmation. It is an unequal division of the cells of the individual that reproduces, generating another identical to itself from some protuberance or body structure that, once the moment arrives, can grow and separate from the parent to begin an independent life, or remain attached and start a colony.
- Spread. In this case, reproduction is carried out by means of structures usually underground, which engender new individuals but attached to their bodies. parents. This is the case of tubers, rhizomes or bulbs.
- Apomixis. It is a form of asexual reproduction by means of seeds, available for some plants only, in which seeds are produced without fertilization or pollination, but only by replicating the genome of the parent, that is, clonal seeds.