What advantages does asexual reproduction have over sexual reproduction?
141789
The obvious advantage of asexual reproduction is that you don't need other members of your species around to reproduce.  This is a really good thing if you want to go in and colonize someplace like a island, or maybe a recently-burned forest.  Or if your species isn't doing so great and there's just no one else around.\n\nFrom an evolutionary perspective, the 'goal' of an organism is to pass it's genes on to the next generation.  In sexual reproduction, each organism only gets to pass half its genes to its offspring.  In asexual reproduction, the parent gets to pass all its genes to the offspring.  That's great if the parent is perfectly adapted to its environment.  The problem is, it's the evolutionary equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket - if something chances and the offspring are no longer well suited to the environment, chances are they'll all die instead of just a few.
886957
You’re probably asking yourself why we spent so much time on HWE since it never happens in the real world. Why did I spend time on this?\n\nIt provides us with a baseline or null model to assess the impacts of different factors (each eliminated by one of the assumptions)\n\nIE\nThe organism is diploid\nReproduction is sexual\nGenerations are non-overlapping\nMating is random\ndoes not allow inbreeding and assortative mating\nPopulation size is very large\nremoves sampling error (genetic drift)\nMigration is negligible\nMutation can be ignored\nNatural selection does not affect the allele in question
812119
asexual reproduction doesn't require two partners in order to reproduce...sexual is the opposite.  It requires two creatures of the opposite sex in order to reproduce.
212376
Conjugation \nModern bacteria reproduce by splitting in two - that is, they have asexual reproduction. But a bacteria can join temporarily with another bacteria to swap genetic fragments. This conjugation process is why so many bacteria have recently become antibiotic resistant. The process permits bacteria to form a sort of community.\n\nBiological reproduction is the biological process by which new individual organisms are produced. Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction by an antecedent. The known methods of reproduction are broadly grouped into two main types: sexual and asexual reproduction.\n\n\nso by this v can see that asexual reproduction is conjugation
773285
Meiosis results in the production of haploid cells, with half of the regular number of chromosomes (23 singles onstead of 23 pairs). These mature into the male and female gametes, which then go off and try to find a complementary set of the opposite sex to hook up with, to become whole again. Hence meiosis allows for genetic coupling of non-identical DNA, resulting in an offspring which has the genetic material of two separate individuals. With only mitotis, there is no sharing of material, just division.\nSharing of material allows for diversity within a population. Populations which are diverse are more likely to survive variations in environment, to have people who can protect others if need be, who can lead if need be, who might have inate resistance to diseases if need be etc etc. So the whole population benefits because of the diversity afforded by meiosis. Clonal populations, produced by mitotis alone, would eventually come across a disease or natural disaster which would affect everyone equally, wiping them all out. \n\nHope this helps.
351649
Asexuality is a general term or self-designation for people who are disinclined towards sexual behavior and lust. Reasons for asexuality can include biological traits such as a limited sex drive as well as personal reasons ranging from general disinterest to seeing sex as awkward, violent, or incompatible with love. There is debate as to whether this is a sexual dysfunction or an actual sexual orientation; furthermore, there is disagreement over the exact definition of the word. The term is also sometimes used as a gender identity by those who believe their lack of sexual attraction places them outside the standard definitions of gender. There has been little research done on asexuality, but those studies that have been conducted suggest that, if it is a sexual orientation, it is among the least common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexual
541267
survive and reproduce
852177
Spores are the means of fungal reproduction and distribution.  They also use hyphae, small root-like structures that can permeate and spread.\n\nThere are any types of spores, including asexual and sexual reproducing, so I'd encourage you to go to the link below to learn more.
1114858
Neither one is more important than the other, since both are required to keep the system going.  However, as the limiting factor in reproduction is how fast women can gestate young, give birth, and recover enough to gestate another child, you need far fewer males than females (as males can continually impregnate other females while pregnant females gestate young).\n\nHowever, to dispel a myth, while females do comprise slightly more of the population than males, nature produces 105 males to every 100 females in human beings.  \n\nThe difference which leads to the female majority in humans is the result of the fact males are much more likely to be victims of murder, are much more likely to die accidental deaths, are more likely to be killed in the line of work, be killed during wars or battles, are more likely to suffer from a chronic genetic disease (most are carried on the X chromosome, so while you have to have two defective copies of the gene in females in order for them to be afflicted by it and not be a carrier, males only have one copy of the genes on the X chromosome, so they need only receive one defective copy to cause them to suffer from the disease... and no, this doesn't make females biologically superior since it proves the mother of the offspring specifically had defective genetic traits which were passed on to the male offspring) etc... etc... etc...\n\nAnd nature seems to understand this, and hedges its bet by producing more males to shore up the numbers.\n\nP.S.-- We cannot clone viable sperm.  Males still have to manufacture the stuff au naturel for the process to work.
244365
zero!  asexual reproduction hasn't occurred in the human species yet.
1164860
Okay, I am going to assume that this is a serious question.  The reason in *favor* of sterilization of insects is that they don't breed.  If they mate, they are sterile, so they don't reproduce.\n\nThe disadvantage is that by itself, this doesn't get rid of any insects.  It just reduces the size of the next generation.  Insecticides, by contrast, kill the insects that are out there today.
49414
Sponges can multiply sexually or asexually.  Asexually a piece can bud off, float away, take root elsewhere, and begin to grow.  Sexually spermatozoa can swim through the water, find egg cells on another sponge, and fertilize the egg.  The result is a motile larva which can swim away and take root elsewhere, growing into a new sponge.
266130
The advantage is seen in the fishes who could slightly breathe through their skin.  When the pond dries up millions of times over hundreds of millions of years the descendants with better breathing could eventually stay ashore and ponder these questions.  The advantage of asexual reproduction is that you don't have to be cute.
967711
A corm is a short, thick, vertical underground stem that survives from one season to the next in a dormant state. The second season it produces one or more aerial stems and also one or more new corms. The new corms store food produced by the growing plant and then go through the next dormant period to produce their own plants and corms the following season. The “bulbs' of gladiolus are actually corms.\n\nPart 2 of your question\n\nVegetative reproduction is a type of asexual reproduction found in plants also called vegetative propagation or vegetative multiplication. \nThe problem of sex\n\nIn sexual reproduction, a new organism is formed by the fusion of two gametes. It is to be contrasted with asexual reproduction, in which females produce offspring without any male contribution; the female's gametes develop directly into female offspring. \n\n• In sexual reproduction, the sex cells - eggs and sperm or pollen - are produced by a reduction division and the gametic fusion restores the original chromosome complement. \n\n• In asexual reproduction, there is either no reduction division (apomixis) or the product cells of one individual's reduction division fuse together again (automixis). Asexual reproduction is rare, but occurs in species such as dandelions (pictured opposite).\n\nIt is easy for a mutation to convert meiosis into mitosis, and thus a sexually reproducing into an asexually reproducing female. \n\nIf the loss of sex would be relatively easy, why is sex maintained? \n\nAlthough some species do reproduce asexually, the majority are sexual. So there is probably a selective advantage to sex in most species. \n\nThis advantage, moreover, must be large, because it has to overcome an automatic two-fold cost of sex, relative to asexual reproduction.
575385
In the logic of evolution theory, heterosexual intercourse is likely to be an innate drive, otherwise our species would be bound to disappear. This for the physical part of it.\nNow in the domain of mental perceptions of sexuality, there's a greater part of acquired things rahter than innate ones.\nBut your question actually contains a paradox, as you state about the internet growth (more generally the spreading of information because TV, advertisement, magazines also contribute to make us more, err..., kinky). We are actually being TAUGHT to become more kinky, striving for various alternatives to the classical hetero one to one.
502976
Asexual reproduction: only one parent is involved, and the offspring have the same DNA, as the parents. Basically, the offspring are exactly like the parents.
950574
It's a key element in evolution, and comes about through modifications of an organism's DNA via radiation, chemical poisoning, or simple mischance in cell replication.  The daugther organism can inherit the modified DNA, and it may - or may not - give some advantage toward survival and subsequent reproduction.