Question

The number of meiotic divisions required to produce 400 seeds in a pea plant is
(a) 400
(b) 500
(c) 600
(d) 800

Answer 1

Hint: Meiosis type of cell division where the mother cell is divided to form four daughter cells in sexually reproducing organisms and mainly results in the production of the gametes.

Complete answer:
The meiotic division is involved in the formation of the two types of gametes in an organism, one male gamete, and the other female gamete. The formation of the male gamete requires only one meiotic division which results in four male gametes while the formation of four female gametes requires four meiotic divisions. So, the five meiotic divisions result in four seeds thus 500 meiotic divisions result in 400 seeds.

Additional Information:
 -One seed will contain one sperm and one egg cell.
-The gametes will have only one copy of a chromosome from each parent resulting in a haploid structure.
-Before the meiotic division, the genetic material undergoes crossing over resulting in new combinations of the chromosome.
-These haploid gametes will later fuse together to form a diploid zygote.
-A pea plant consists of a total number of 14 chromosomes, which was studied by the father of genetics Gregor Mendel.
-The seed of the pea plant has generally a green seed pod with small spherical seeds inside it.
-Pea seeds are called fruits as they are developed from the ovary of the pea plant’s flower.
-It belongs to one of the largest family of the flowering plants called Fabaceae.
So, the correct answer is ‘500’.

Note: In 1876, meiosis was first described and also discovered in the case of the eggs of the sea urchins. A German biologist named Oscar Hertwig discovered it. In 1883, the Belgian zoologist Edouard Van Beneden again discovered it in the eggs of the Ascaris roundworms. The term meiosis was derived from the Greek word meiosis, meaning ‘lessening' in 1905 by J. B. Farmer and J. E. S. Moore.