BRAINCAKEGametes
Gametes are specialised sex cells that fuse at fertilisation. They are haploid, containing a single set of chromosomes (23 in humans), so that fusion of a male and a female gamete gives a diploid zygote.
In most organisms the two types of gamete are very different in size and behaviour:
• Male gametes are small, produced in very large numbers and able to travel to the female gamete. In animals the male gamete is the sperm (spermatozoon), which swims using a tail (flagellum). In flowering plants the male gametes are nuclei carried inside the pollen grain and delivered to the ovule by a pollen tube.
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Key terms in this lesson
- meiosis
- A type of nuclear division that produces four haploid daughter cells, each genetically different, from one diploid parent cell; it makes gametes.
- independent assortment
- The random separation of homologous chromosome pairs into gametes during meiosis, producing different combinations of maternal and paternal chromosomes.
More in Meiosis and Sexual Reproduction
All 28 lessons in Meiosis and Sexual Reproduction · All Edexcel AS-level Biology topics