Reproduction in Living Beings - ESO 2 Science

What to Learn

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The role of reproduction in the living beings.
Types of reproduction.
Asexual reproduction in animals. Examples.
Sexual reproduction in animals. Embryonic development.
Asexual reproduction in plants. Examples.
Sexual reproduction in plants. The flower.

Basic Information

In this section - Some relevant information that you should learn.

Vocabulary: Flowers and Sexual Reproduction in Plants

Perfect flowers	Or hermaphrodite flowers. They have both functional male parts (stamens capable of producing pollen) and functional female parts (pistil capable of producing seeds).
Staminate flowers	Staminate (or "male") flowers are ones which have functional stamens, capable of producing pollen, but either have no ovary at all, or an ovary which is not fertile.
Pistillate flowers	Pistillate (or "female") flowers are ones which have a functional pistil, capable of producing seeds, but either have no stamens at all, or have stamens with anthers that are incapable of producing pollen.
Dioecious	Said of a plant species which has some individuals which bear only staminate flowers, and some which bear only pistillate flowers, and there are no perfect flowers. These are the species that are commonly referred to as having male and female plants. Willows and poplars are dioecius.
Monoecious	Said of a plant species in which all individuals bear both staminate and pistillate flowers, but there are no perfect flowers. For example, oaks with male flowers in catkins, producing wind-borne pollen, and female flowers on the stems, producing acorns.
Pistil	The female reproductive organ of the flower, composed of a stigma, style, and ovary.
Stigma	The top part of the pistil, where pollen grains are received.
Ovary	In angiosperms, the protective structure that holds the ovules and surrounds the seed; after fertilization, develops into a fruit.
Ovule	Structure that contains the female sex cell in the flowering plants; after fertilization, develops into a seed.
Pollen Grains	Structures that contain the male sex cells in the flowering plants; they are meant to fertilize the ovules; they are produced in the anthers of the stamens.
Pollen Tube	The outgrowth of a pollen grain that creates a path through the pistil in order to penetrate to the ovules.
Cross-pollination	The process, occurring in most angiosperms, by which the pollen grains of one plant fertilize the ovules of another.
Self-pollination	The process by which the pollen grains of one plant fertilize the ovules of the same plant.

Vocabulary: Asexual Reproduction in Plants

Vegetative Propagation	A form of asexual reproduction in which plants produce clones of themselves, which then develop into independent plants. The main types are by fragmentation, by bulbs, by tubers, by runners and by grafting.
Fragmentation	When a severed plant part develops into a whole new plant.
Bulb	Roughly spherical underground bud containing additional buds that can develop asexually into new plants.
Tuber	Fleshy underground storage structure, composed of an enlarged portion of the stem, that has on its surface buds (called "scale leaves") capable of producing new plants.
Runner / Stolon	Slender horizontal stem that can give rise, via specialized nodes, to new plants.
Grafting	An artificial form of vegetative propagation in which parts of two young plants are joined together, first by artificial means and then by tissue regeneration.
Scion	Twig or bud that is grafted onto a plant with roots (called the stock) and develops into a new shoot system.
Stock	Plant with a root system onto which a twig or bud from another plant (called a scion) is grafted.

External Links

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Reproduction in Plants

Flower parts.Learn the parts of an angiosperm flower with this interactive animation.

Flower structure.Learn the parts of an angiosperm flower and the functions of each.

General stages in the life cycle of flowering plants.Very useful commented photo gallery to learn about the life cycle of angiosperms.

Pollen park.Learn about plant reproduction through this beautiful interactive game.

Foxgloves.The foxglove is a marvellous example of a plant which is adapted to be pollinated by insects. Learn how certain parts of this plant have been specially modified over time so that it is able to attract insects.

Orchids: nature's sexy sirens.Orchids are just fascinating beings. Their refined sexual behaviour involves from promising food to even tricking insects into thinking they're a sexual partner. Learn more.

Male wasps make love to orchids.Learn how orchids mimic female wasps to favour their own fertilisation.

Reproduction in Animals

Sex and the seahorse.When the male is the pregnant one.

Penis length isn't everything… for barnacle males.Longer isn't always better, according to some men, and it seems the same is true for barnacles, too.

'Virgin births' for giant lizards.Females of the Komodo Dragon, the largest lizard in the world, are capable of producing offspring without male contact.

Ants inhabit 'world without sex'.An Amazonian ant has developed into an all-female species, researchers have found.

Animals in love.A wonderful photo gallery of animals in the mood for love.

Movies, Animations and Audios

In this section - Movies, animations and audio files collected from the Internet.

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Reproduction in Plants

Methods of pollination.

Learn how plants manage to be pollinated and to avoid self-pollination.

Produced by Britannica.com

Wild orchid wasp mimic.

This incredible plant dupes wasps into thinking they're mating, while loading them with pollen.

BBC Worldwide

Fruit development.

A fruit consists of seeds enclosed in a mature ovary of a flowering plant. The wall of the ovary in an apple hardened and the supporting stem become fleshy and grows up and around the ovary.