Reproduction

Reproduction (or procreation) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parents". Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction. There are two forms of reproduction: asexual and sexual.

In asexual reproduction, an organism can reproduce without the involvement of another organism. Asexual reproduction is not limited to single-celled organisms. The cloning of an organism is a form of asexual reproduction. By asexual reproduction, an organism creates a genetically similar or identical copy of itself. The evolution of sexual reproduction is a major puzzle for biologists. The two-fold cost of sex is that only 50% of organisms reproduce and organisms only pass on 50% of their genes.

Sexual reproduction typically requires the sexual interaction of two specialized organisms, called gametes, which contain half the number of chromosomes of normal cells and are created by meiosis, with typically a male fertilizing a female of the same species to create a fertilized zygote. This produces offspring organisms whose genetic characteristics are derived from those of the two parental organisms.

Reproduction (disambiguation)

Reproduction may mean:

Reproduction (economics)

In Marxian economics, economic reproduction refers to recurrent (or cyclical) processes Aglietta views economic reproduction as the initial conditions necessary for economic activity to occur are constantly re-created. Marx viewed reproduction as the means by which society re-created itself, both materially and socially. The recreation of the conditions necessary for economic activity to take place was a key part of that. A capitalist would need to reproduce a certain social hierarchy of workers who owned nothing but their labor power and of others who controlled the capital necessary to make production start. Thus, the process of reproduction would need to recreate workers as workers, and capitalists as capitalists.

Economic reproduction involves the physical production and distribution of goods and services, the trade (the circulation via exchanges and transactions) of goods and services, and the consumption of goods and services (both productive or intermediate consumption and final consumption).