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The gametophyte is the sexual phase in the life cycle of plants and algae. It develops sex organs that produce gametes, haploid sex cells that participate in fertilization to form a diploid zygote which has a double set of chromosomes.
In ferns the gametophyte is a small flattened autotrophic prothallus on which the young sporophyte is briefly dependent for its nutrition. In flowering plants, the reduction of the gametophyte is much more extreme; it consists of just a few cells which grow entirely inside the sporophyte. Animals develop differently. They directly produce ...
The gametophyte is the multicellular structure (plant) that is haploid, containing a single set of chromosomes in each cell. The gametophyte produces male or female gametes (or both), by a process of cell division, called mitosis. In vascular plants with separate gametophytes, female gametophytes are known as mega gametophytes (mega=large, they ...
The fully grown sporophyte, what is commonly referred to as the fern, produces genetically unique spores in the sori by meiosis. The haploid spores fall from the sporophyte and germinate by mitosis, given the right conditions, into the gametophyte stage, the prothallus.
The radiating arms of female gametophores (left) protect archegonia that produce eggs. Male gametophores (right) are topped with antheridia that produce sperm. Plants have complex lifecycles involving alternation of generations. One generation, the sporophyte, gives rise to the next generation, the gametophyte asexually via spores.
For example, plants produce gametes through mitosis in gametophytes. The gametophytes grow from haploid spores after sporic meiosis. The gametophytes grow from haploid spores after sporic meiosis. The existence of a multicellular, haploid phase in the life cycle between meiosis and gametogenesis is also referred to as alternation of generations .
The megaspore that remains divides mitotically and develops into the gametophyte, which eventually produces one egg cell. [2] In the most common type of megagametophyte development in flowering plants (the Polygonum type), three mitotic divisions are involved in producing the gametophyte, which has seven cells, one of which (the central cell ...
The sporophyte produces spores (hence the name) by meiosis, a process also known as "reduction division" that reduces the number of chromosomes in each spore mother cell by half. The resulting meiospores develop into a gametophyte. Both the spores and the resulting gametophyte are haploid, meaning they only have one set of chromosomes.