Question

what is meiosis and mitosis? why is meiosis needed in species that reproduce asexually?

Answer 1

Meiosis is a process of cell division that reduces the chromosome number by half thus, called the reductional division. It results in production of haploid daughter cells and takes place mainly in the reproductive cells (or sex cells).

Mitosis is a process of cell division in which the number of chromosome in the parent cell and daughter cell remain same thus, called equational division. It occurs in all cells other than reproductive cells.

In species where reproduction is through asexual mode, meiosis do not takes place instead offsprings produced by mitosis (or equational division) and thus, they will have exact copies of genes of the parent.