PARTHENOGENESIS or Giant Lobsters in Earth Take-Over Bid aided by Dandelion Clones
Recent publications, e.g. Underwood et al. Nature Genetics 2022, "A PARTHENOGENESIS allele from apomictic dandelion can induce egg cell division without fertilization in lettuce" have raised the ago-old questions, "why is there sex, why are there only two sexes and is sex really necessary?" Reproduction in which two gametes unite to form a new individual is known as sexual reproduction. Sex is not essential for life and there are many examples of asexual reproduction in the plant and animal kingdoms. Apomixis is the fertilization-independent production of seeds resulting in the formation of maternally derived clonal progeny. There are other examples of clonal progeny including Dolly the Sheep and hydatidiform moles. Molar pregnancies are clonal tissues formed when an egg contains only paternal genes, rather than a set of maternal and paternal genes. Most plants reproduce via sex, but the common Dandelion makes clonal seeds via apomixis . The application of apomixis...