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This shows that four spores shared a common origin and were initially in contact with each other forming a tetrahedron. [3] A wider aperture in the shape of a groove may be termed a colpus. [8] The number of colpi distinguishes major groups of plants. Eudicots have tricolpate spores (i.e. spores with three colpi). [9]
Plant spores are most obvious in the reproduction of ferns and mosses. However, they also exist in flowering plants where they develop hidden inside the flower. For example, the pollen grains of flowering plants develop out of microspores produced in the anthers. Reproductive spores grow into multicellular haploid individuals or sporelings.
Flowering plants contain microsporangia in the anthers of stamens (typically four microsporangia per anther) and megasporangia inside ovules inside ovaries. In all seed plants, spores are produced by meiosis and develop into gametophytes while still inside the sporangium. The microspores become microgametophytes (pollen).
Since most plants carry both male and female reproductive organs in their flowers, there is a high risk of self-pollination and thus inbreeding. Some plants use the control of pollen germination as a way to prevent this self-pollination. Germination and growth of the pollen tube involve molecular signaling between stigma and pollen.
Spores form a part of the life cycles of a diverse range of organisms such as many bacteria, plants, algae, fungi and some protozoa. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Kingdom Fungi), the set of early genes activating sporulation is induced by Ime1 (Inducer of Meiosis 1) and a regulator of middle genes is Ndt80p. [4]
Heterospory evolved due to natural selection that favoured an increase in propagule size compared with the smaller spores of homosporous plants. [ 2 ] Heterosporous plants, similar to anisosporic plants [ clarification needed ] , produce two different sized spores in separate sporangia that develop into separate male and female gametophytes.
The slime mold life cycle includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic multicellular or multinucleate fruiting bodies that may be formed through aggregation or fusion; aggregation is driven by chemical signals called acrasins.
In flowering plants, the gametophytes are very reduced in size, and are represented by the germinated pollen and the embryo sac. The sporophyte produces spores (hence the name) by meiosis, a process also known as "reduction division" that reduces the number of chromosomes in each spore mother cell by half. The resulting meiospores develop into ...