Plants have reproductive systems that are more variable than those in most animals. In
many plants, both sexual and asexual means of reproduction are possible. The combination of both means of reproduction can be highly advantageous for plants, especially for perennials. When sexual reproduction is prevented or averted, either by physical damage to the plants or by unfavorable environmental conditions, perennials usually can persist vegetatively until conditions are favorable for sexual reproduction. The main advantage of sexual reproduction is that it provides an opportunity for organisms to produce new combinations of genes or to pass on to succeeding generations new mutations that might be highly adaptive to changing environments or to other conditions. Recombination occurs through the reassortment of parental genes during meiosis and subsequent combination of those genes during fertilization. |
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