Question

Why is asexual reproduction sometimes disadvantageous

• A. It allows sedentary animals to produce offspring without mates
• B. It allows animals to produce many offspring quickly
• C. It saves times and energy of gamete formation
• D. It produces genetically uniform population

Answer 1

Answer: (D)

It produces genetically uniform population

Asexual reproduction is disadvantageous because the offspring obtained are clones of the parent and creates lack of variation in the gene pool. Fusion of gametes does not take place in vegetative propagation so there is no chance of recombination and variation. The parent cell divides to form daughter cell by mitosis due to which the offspring are genetically identical to the parent. Recombination makes new combinations of alleles along chromosomes, and it restricts the effects of mutations largely to the region around a gene, not the whole chromosome. It also helps in the production of a hybrid with improved genetic and morphological characters.

So, the correct answer is option D.