(Replying to PARENT post)

>One possibility was that Leonie had been storing sperm from her ex and using it to fertilise her eggs. But genetic testing showed that the babies only carried DNA from their mum, indicating they had been conceived via asexual reproduction.

In this form of asexual reproduction are the babies genetic clones of the mother?

👤phreenet🕑8y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

From BBC via Google's infobox;

  Asexual reproduction needs only one parent, unlike sexual reproduction,
  which needs two parents. Since there is only one parent, there is no
  fusion of gametes and no mixing of genetic information. As a result, the
  offspring are genetically identical to the parent and to each other. They
  are clones.
👤zaroth🕑8y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

"... parthenogenetic offspring may have anywhere between all and half of the mother's alleles. The offspring having all of the mother's genetic material are called full clones and those having only half are called half clones. Full clones are usually formed without meiosis. If meiosis occurs, the offspring will get only a fraction of the mother's alleles."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis

👤SpikedCola🕑8y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

If you're referring to the shark in the news article, her offspring are not genetic clones.

"In sharks, asexual reproduction can occur when a female’s egg is fertilised by an adjacent cell known as a polar body, Dudgeon says. This also contains the female’s genetic material, leading to “extreme inbreeding”, she says."

Which is odd because genetic clones would be far healthier than the inbred offspring from above.

👤whack🕑8y🔼0🗨️0