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Plants and Reproduction PDF

Plants reproduce both sexually and asexually. Sexual reproduction involves male and female gametes fusing to form seeds which grow into new plants. Asexual reproduction uses vegetative propagation to produce offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant. Flowers evolved to facilitate cross-pollination between plants of the same species for greater genetic variation among offspring. Seeds are dispersed by a variety of methods including fruit consumption by animals which disperse the seeds in their waste. This allows plants to colonize new areas and reduces competition between offspring and parent plants.

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Johanna Urwin
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52 views

Plants and Reproduction PDF

Plants reproduce both sexually and asexually. Sexual reproduction involves male and female gametes fusing to form seeds which grow into new plants. Asexual reproduction uses vegetative propagation to produce offspring that are genetically identical to the parent plant. Flowers evolved to facilitate cross-pollination between plants of the same species for greater genetic variation among offspring. Seeds are dispersed by a variety of methods including fruit consumption by animals which disperse the seeds in their waste. This allows plants to colonize new areas and reduces competition between offspring and parent plants.

Uploaded by

Johanna Urwin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Plants and their reproduction

Classification and Biodiversity

• How is classification useful?


• We use different characteristics of organisms to classify them into
groups.
• The five largest groups are the kingdoms. Each kingdom can be split
into smaller groups
The five kingdoms
• Each of the smaller groups is divided into even smaller groups, as
shown in the picture below. The last group contains only type of
organism. We give this organism a scientific name using the names of
the two last groups (the genus and the species).

Scientific names are agreed all around the


world and so confusion is less.
Biodiversity

• Habitats containing many different species have greater biodiversity.


We need to preserve biodiversity because organisms depend on one
another.
• Ig an organism becomes extinct it will affect other organisms in a
habitat and may cause them to become extinct too.
• Areas with greater biodiversity recover faster from disasters.
Types of Reproduction

• What are serial and asexual reproduction?

• Sexual reproduction occurs when two organisms breed and produce


new organisms. Members of the same species can reproduce sexually
to produce offspring that can also reproduce sexually.
• Members of two different species cannot usually reproduce, but if
they do, the offspring are called hybrids. Hybrids cannot reproduce
sexually; they are not fertile.
• Sexual reproduction produces offspring that do not look identical to
their parents; they have some characteristics from one parent and
some from the other. These characteristics are inherited and so
variation in these characteristics is called inherited variation.
• In sexual reproduction, the parents produce sex cells or gametes. A
male gamete and a female gametes join together to form a fertilised
egg cell or zygote.
Asexual reproduction
• Plants can reproduce sexually, buy many also use asexual
reproduction. This does not need gametes. Instead, part of the
parent plant forms a new plant. Which means the offspring will be
identical to the parent..
• Strawberry plants grow runners, which spread over the ground and
sprout roots at intervals.
• Potato plants grow underground stems. The ends of these swell up to
to form potato tubers.
• Gardeners use asexual reproduction to produce identical new plants
quickly and cheaply. Often, they cut off a leaf or side stem from a
plant and put it in moist soil. This is called taking a cutting.The
cuttings grow roots and form new plants.

• Asexual reproduction produces offspring that are all exactly the same
as the parent. It allows plants to spread much faster than by using
sexual reproduction.
Pollination
• What are flowers for?
• Flowering plants use flowers for sexual reproduction. Most flowers
contain both male and female reproductive organs.
• Each pollen grain contains a male gamete (sex cell).
• The grains are carried away and transferred to the stigmas of other
flowers. This is called pollination and is carried out by animals, wind
or water. Flowers have different structures depending on how they
are pollinated.
• Plants that use animal pollinators have flowers with petals. They
attract the animals (mainly insects) with scent, colours and nectar to
eat. Some plants also make extra pollen as a food for visiting insects.
The structure of animal-pollinated flowers makes sure that visiting
animals either pick up or leave pollen grains.
• Hazel trees and grasses use the wind to spread their pollen. Wind
pollinated flowers look different from insect-pollinated flowers and
do not have petals.
Cross-pollination

• If pollen grains from a plant land on the stigma of the of the same
plant, this cannot happen. Plants try to stop this self-pollination and
ensure cross-pollination. In some species (e.g. holly, nutmeg), half
the plants have flowers with female reproductive organs and half the
plants have male flowers. In other species, all the anthers on a plant
ripen and release their pollen before the stigmas become ready to
receive pollen.
Fertilisation and dispersal

• If a pollen grain reaches a stigma of the same species, it can grow a


pollen tube. The stigma makes a sugary solution, providing a source
of energy for the pollen tube to grow down the style into the ovary.
Eventually the tube reaches an ovule.
• The next stage is fertilisation,, in which the egg cell and the male
gamete from the pollen grain join together and their nuclei fuse into
one. This forms a zygote (fertilised egg cell)
• The zygote splits in two (using a process called cell division) these
cells divide again and again to form an embryo. The embryo develops
a tiny root and a tiny shoot.
An embryo is formed by cell division
Seeds and fruits
• The ovule becomes the seed. Inside the seed is the embryo, together
with a store of food (such as starch). A hard seed coat forms around
the seed to protect it. When the seed starts to germinate, it uses the
store of food to allow the embryo to grow. The ovary swells up and
becomes the fruit around the seed
Seed dispersal

• Fruits spread seeds away from the parent plants. This is called seed
dispersal.
• Many of them are brightly coloured to attract animals to eat them.
• The flesh of the fruit is easily digested but the seeds are protected
from the digestive systems of the animals.
• The seeds are egested by the animals in their faeces.
• Other fruits are dry. They use animals, wind, water and even
explosions to disperse their seeds.
• Seed dispersal allows plant species to spread to new areas. It also
means that the new loans are not in competition with their parents.
• Plants compete with one another for resources (e.g. Light, water). The
more plants in an area, the greater the competition. If offspring grow
away from their parents, there will be less competition between
them.

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