Birds do it. Bees do it. Plants do it, too. And for good reason: Sexual reproduction has evolved as nature’s way of shuffling the genetic deck of cards, so to speak. That shuffling actually starts before organisms make sex cells (sperm and egg). In this process, called meiosis, matching chromosomes inherited from an organism’s mother and father swap sections, yielding cells that are genetically distinct from either parent. This genetic rejiggering churns out diverse combos of traits that can be “winning hands” for offspring, giving them a competitive advantage.
Click here for original story, New key stages discovered in how plants prepare to make sex cells for reproduction
Source: Phys.org