Lesson 12 What are binary fission and budding

Lesson 12 What are binary fission and budding?

You have a mother and a father. Two parents, one male and one female. Your dog or cat also has two parents.

So does a fly, a snake, or a fish. In fact, most of the living things you can think of have come from two parents. Reproduction that requires two parents is called sexual reproduction.

Another kind of reproduction requires only one parent. This kind of reproduction is known as asexual reproduction.

Binary fission is one kind of asexual reproduction. It is the simplest form of asexual reproduction. It is simple cell division. Bacteria and many other one celled organisms reproduce this way.

This is how it happens: An organism grows to full size.

The hereditary material (chromosomes) duplicate.

The organism then splits in half.

You now have two daughter cells. Each is exactly alike. They are also exactly like the parents cell, just half the size.

Each new daughter cell carries on its own life functions. When each reaches full size, they divide in half again. This process goes on and on.

Another form of asexual reproduction is budding. In budding, a new cell is formed from a small bud which grows out from the parent cell.

You now have two cells of very different sizes.

When the daughter cell is large enough, it reproduces. Even though the sizes of the cells are different, the hereditary material is the same.

The daughter cell is exactly like the parent cell, only much smaller. Yeast is the most common organism that reproduces by budding.