[Music] reproduction means producing more of the same type of organism people having babies plants producing seeds and bacteria dividing are all examples of reproduction there are two main types sexual and asexual in summary sexual reproduction involves two parents each one providing a reproductive cell which combines with the other parent's reproductive cell to produce a new unique cell which can develop into a complete organism asexual reproduction on the other hand requires only one parent and all the offspring are genetic clones of that parent let's look at them both in a little more detail under most circumstances animals reproduce by sexual reproduction an egg cell from the female fuses with a sperm cell from the male these reproductive cells the egg and sperm cells are known as gametes and this process of fusion to form a new cell is called fertilization worth noting here that the spelling of fertilization depends on which type of english you use now like all cells the gametes contain dna the genetic instructions that make us who we are during fertilization the dna of each parent combines meaning that when the cells fuse they produce a new unique cell with a combination of the dna of each parent this new cell is called a zygote the zygote then divides millions upon millions of times and develops into a new organism the same general process happens in flowering plants they have male and female gametes which combine to produce a zygote the male gametes of flowers are found in pollen grains while the female gametes are found in the ovules a fertilized ovule develops into a seed which can develop into a new plant unlike sexual reproduction asexual reproduction involves one parent producing offspring which have dna that is identical to that parent's dna let's look at a few examples in plants some plants produce runners these are basically long stems that grow horizontally in certain points along the runner new vertical stems and roots can form if separated from the parent plant these new stem and root systems the daughter plants can exist independently here you can see a strawberry plant with a runner stem and its daughter plants tubers are another method tubers are basically just modified plant stems or roots acting as a storage of food for the plant potatoes are a really common example of tubers if you've ever left potatoes for too long before eating them you might have noticed they grow little green shoots on them this happens to potatoes in the ground too and these new stems can grow into new independent plants since they ultimately came from a single parent plant they have the same dna and are genetically identical to that parent another example is bulbs these are another type of modified stem again providing a storage of food onions are a well-known example of plant bulbs a single bulb can produce daughter bulbs which can each grow into separate genetically identical plants all of the examples of asexual reproduction in plants outlined so far are natural meaning they can occur in nature without any human involvement but humans sometimes use artificial methods of asexual reproduction in plants if the plant is useful to us for food medicine etc with some plants you can take cuttings this basically means cutting off a small section of a plant and putting it in the soil the cutting will form roots and exist as an independent plant another method is micro propagation this is a big topic that deserves a video of its own but in summary it involves taking plant tissue from one plant in sterile laboratory conditions and allowing it to grow into new plants with the help of nutrients and hormones back to natural examples plants aren't the only organs binary fission yeasts are another example they can reproduce using a technique called budding this is where a daughter cell the bud forms from the parent cell it has identical dna to the parent cell and will separate to live as an independent cell even some animals can reproduce asexually for example certain species of starfish are able to remove a part of their body both separate sections of body can then regrow the missing section leaving two genetically identical individuals from the original one both sexual and asexual reproduction have their advantages but that's all presented in the next video [Music]