Genetics and Reproduction
Based on recent studies it appears that female snakes have the ability to reproduce with no sexual contact. There are two major reproduction kinds which are sexual and asexual in copperhead female snakes. Asexual refers to the reproduction with no games fusion while sexual reproduction refers to the engagement of both female and male games fusion from both parents. Sexual reproduction, unlike the asexual one, is directly dependent on meiosis (Starr, Evers and Starr, 2016). Meiosis refers to the unique nuclear division which results in the production of four different gamete cells. With sexual reproduction by the copperhead snakes, this results in increased diversity thus introducing genetic variation and diversity (Starr, Evers and Starr, 2016). Therefore, in my opinion, I believe that sexual reproduction is the most suitable reproduction method for copperhead snakes given that it results in genetic variation.
Through meiosis, the sexual reproduction procedure will lead to genetic diversity given that every successive produce will own new information acquired from both parents and with the continuity of this trend evolution and diversity will be created. Without the occurrence of meiosis, this means that asexual reproduction will result in having matching offspring are thus creating zero or little species diversity (Solomon, Martin, Martin and Berg, 2014). Gregor Mendel makes the discovery in his Segregation Law. While he utilized peanuts, in particular, he established the presence of dominant and recessive characteristics that are distributed in random from the parents to their descendants. This, therefore, implies that for the copperhead snakes, the descendants are bound to acquire inherited genetic composition from the parents while several unique features and traits can be acquired in the process (Solomon, Martin, Martin and Berg, 2014). For instance, if a single parent has a higher camouflage aspect this will be acquired by descendants which will, therefore, be useful for survival.
References
Starr, C., Evers, C., and Starr, L. (2016). Biology: Concepts and Applications. Cengage Learning.
Solomon, E., Martin, C., Diana W. Martin and Linda R. Berg. (2014). Biology. Cengage Learning.
