Question

In the context of reproduction of species state the main difference between fission and fragmentation. Also, give one example of each.

Answer 1

Hint: Reproduction is the basic feature one can see in all known living organisms, it is a biological process where new organisms such as offspring are produced from a parent organisms, and this process is majorly divided into two types, they are asexual and sexual types of reproduction, and they in turn are of different types based on the type of organisms.

Complete answer:

Fission	Fragmentation
This is a type of reproduction, where there is a spontaneous division of the parent cell, and this divided cell grows separately and develops into new cells or daughter cells.	In this type of reproduction, the parent cell fragmented or broke and each fragment grows separately and develops into an individual organism.
This type of reproduction such as fission is of two types, such as binary fission, where one parent cell divides into two daughter cells, example: amoeba, and in some unicellular organisms like plasmodium multiple fissions take place.	This type of reproduction mainly takes place in plants, sea stars, and spirogyra, etc.
In this fission both nuclear and cytoplasmic division occurs.	In the fragmentation, no nuclear division takes place.
This mainly occurs in unicellular organisms and the daughter cells produced are also unicellular.	It is mainly seen in multicellular organisms, where the whole or part of an organism breaks or fragments, and the daughter organisms are also multicellular.
In this type the division takes place by mitosis.	May or may not occur, where it mainly occurs by mechanical shearing of organisms.

Note: Both fission and fragmentation are type of asexual reproduction, where they both occur in simple organisms, where as fission takes place in organisms like paramecium, etc. And the fragmentation is a type of vegetative reproduction that occurs in plants as tubers, runners, rhizomes, etc. And in animals it occurs in sponges and sea stars, annelids, etc.