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Heterospory is the production of spores of two different sizes and sexes by the sporophytes of land plants. The smaller of these, the microspore , is male and the larger megaspore is female. Heterospory evolved during the Devonian period from isospory independently in several plant groups: the clubmosses , the ferns including the arborescent ...
Spores of two distinct sizes (heterospory or anisospory): larger megaspores and smaller microspores. When the two kinds of spore are produced in different kinds of sporangia, these are called megasporangia and microsporangia. A megaspore often (but not always) develops at the expense of the other three cells resulting from meiosis, which abort.
There is debate as to whether endospory or heterospory evolved first. Some debate centers upon the requirement of endospory to develop before heterospory. [2] Endospory is assumed to follow heterospory but it has been suggested that without endospory, early plant species dependency on water fertilization and environmental impacts on gametophytic gene expression would have reduced the chances ...
During the Devonian period several plant groups independently evolved heterospory and subsequently the habit of endospory, in which the gametophytes develop in miniaturized form inside the spore wall. By contrast in exosporous plants, including modern ferns, the gametophytes break the spore wall open on germination and develop outside it.
In gymnosperms and flowering plants, the megaspore is produced inside the nucellus of the ovule.During megasporogenesis, a diploid precursor cell, the megasporocyte or megaspore mother cell, undergoes meiosis to produce initially four haploid cells (the megaspores). [1]
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Anisogamy is the form of sexual reproduction that involves the union or fusion of two gametes which differ in size and/or form. [12] The smaller gamete is considered to be male (a sperm cell), whereas the larger gamete is regarded as female (typically an egg cell, if non-motile).
In land plants, anisogamy is universal. As in animals, female and male gametes are called, respectively, eggs and sperm. In extant land plants, either the sporophyte or the gametophyte may be reduced (heteromorphic). [2]