Plant Life Cycle Vs. Human Life Cycle

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru9d3HX9uH8

Summary:

Plants have lived on land for approximately 500 million years. The video contrasts the human life cycle to a plant life cycle. In both of these cycles, there is a diploid stage and a haploid part. In the human life cycle, the haploid part of life are the gametes (eggs and sperm) and the diploid part is a person. In this way, the human life cycle only has one multicellular body (a person). In a plants life though, there end up being two multicellular bodies. These two bodies are the sporophyte and the gametophyte. As the video says, the sporophyte creates sporangium which eventually create spores. The sporophyte is diploid, while the spores are haploid. This is possible because meiosis occurs and ultimately makes haploid spores. The second multicellular body is the gametophyte. The gametophyte is a haploid body that creates haploid gametes through mitosis. After these gametes are created, an egg and a sperm (both of these are gametes) fuse together through fertilization and create a diploid zygote. Then the cycle can repeat like this again and again.

Relevance to Class:

This unit has been about plants. This means we have been learning about plants came about, their anatomy and how they reproduce. Therefore, this video is very similar to what we had done earlier this week. In fact we got a diagram similar to the one in the video and were told to fill it out. Although I found it helpful to have another perspective on this very important cycle. In addition, earlier this year we had studied how humans reproduce through meiosis. In this way, I appreciated how the video contrasted these two cycles that I was already familiar of.  

Video Information:

URL:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru9d3HX9uH8

Date of Publication: Feburary 28, 2012

Creator's Youtube Username: DrDiclonius