in this video we're going to take a look at the two main ways that organisms can reproduce so sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction some organisms like plants can reproduce through either of these two routes however most animals have to rely on sexual reproduction and bacteria all reproduce asexually let's start with sexual reproduction the key point here is that it involves the fusion of male and female gametes which we call fertilization and because there are two parents the offspring contain a mixture of their parents genes and so it genetically different this is why you inherit characteristics from both parents and it means that over generations it introduces lots of variation as each person is different now gametes ourselves like sperm and eggs in animals or when looking at flowering plants pollen and eggs and the important thing about dummies is that they only have half of the genetic material or a normal cell so whereas a normal human cell has 46 chromosomes a human gamete only has 23 this means that when the two gametes fuse together the resulting cell will have 46 chromosomes again just like our normal cell from before we meet damage to a process known as meiosis which we'll cover in the next video one thing to point out is that sexual reproduction doesn't actually have to involve sex or intercourse it just refers to diffusion of male and female gametes for example when plants reproduce by the combination of pollen and egg cells it still counts as sexual reproduction asexual reproduction meanwhile takes place with only one parent and doesn't involve any damage this means there's no mixing of genetic material and so no genetic variation which means all of the offspring are identical clones for eukaryotic organisms such as plants fungi and a few animals this asexual reproduction is achieved through mitosis while through chaotic organisms such as bacteria do it by binary fission as we've covered mitosis and binary fission in other videos we'll put the links to those in the description down below anyway that's everything about reproduction for now so we hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time