In biology Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy, mating is the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic In biology, a hermaphrodite is an animal or plant that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes. . Many taxonomic groups of animals , do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both partners can act as the "female" organisms In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole. An organism may either be unicellular (single-celled) or be composed of, as in humans, many trillions of cells grouped into for copulation and in social animals A social animal is a loosely defined term for an organism that is highly interactive with other members of its species to the point of having a recognizable and distinct society it also includes the raising of their offspring In biology, offspring is the product of reproduction, a new organism produced by one or more parents. For animals, mating methods include random mating A panmictic population is one where all individuals are potential partners. This assumes that there are no mating restrictions, neither genetic or behavioural, upon the population, and that therefore all recombination is possible. The Wahlund effect assumes that the overall population is panmictic, disassortative mating Disassortative sexual selection is a form of sexual selection in which one sex chooses the other, in such a way that the offspring benefits from the diversity of the parental genotypes. Two examples of this form of selection are self-incompatibility in plants and MHC class III genes, assortative mating Assortative mating takes place when sexually reproducing organisms choose to mate with individuals that are similar (positive assortative mating) or dissimilar (negative assortative mating) to themselves in some specific manner. In evolution, these two types of assortative mating have the effect, respectively, of reducing or increasing the range, or a mating pool.
In some birds, it includes such behaviours as nest A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs and/or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, hair or paper, may be used-building and feeding Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary (in the form of food) to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet offspring. The human practice of mating domesticated Domestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. A defining characteristic of domestication is artificial selection by humans. Some species such as the Asian Elephant, numerous members of which have for many centuries been used as animals and of artificially inseminating Artificial insemination, or AI, is the process by which sperm is placed into the reproductive tract of a female for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sexual intercourse. In humans, it is used as assisted reproductive technology, primarily to treat infertility using sperm from the woman's partner, or sperm from a them is part of animal husbandry Animal husbandry, also called animal science, stockbreeding or simple husbandry, is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock. It has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals.
Copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination Insemination is the introduction of sperm into the female uterus of a mammal or the oviduct of an oviparous during copulation with another animal and subsequent internal fertilization In mammals, internal fertilization is done through copulation, which involves the insertion of the penis into the vagina. Some other higher vertebrate animals reproduce internally, but their fertilization is cloacal. The two individuals may be of opposite sexes or hermaphroditic In biology, a hermaphrodite is an animal or plant that has reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes. . Many taxonomic groups of animals , do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which both partners can act as the "female", as is the case with, for example, snails Snail is a common name for almost all members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in a general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. Otherwise snail-like creatures that lack a shell are called slugs.
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In animals
See also: Animal sexuality and Human sexualityIn some terrestrial Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land, as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats (e.g., frogs). Terrestrial animals evolved from marine animals (aquatic animals living in the ocean). The arthropods An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton , a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the Phylum Arthropoda (from Greek ἄρθρον arthron, "joint", and ποδός podos "foot", which together mean "jointed feet"), and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and, including insects Insects are a class within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae. They are among the most diverse group of animals on the planet and include more than a million described species and represent more than half of all known living representing basal In phylogenetics, a basal clade is the earliest clade to branch in a larger clade; it appears at the base of a cladogram (primitive) phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices. The term phylogenetics is of Greek origin from the terms phyle/phylon (φυλή/φῦλον), meaning "tribe, race," and genetikos (γενετικός clades, the male deposits spermatozoa on the substrate, sometimes stored within a special structure. Courtship Courtship is the traditional dating period before engagement and marriage. During a courtship, a couple dates to get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement. Usually courtship is a public affair, done in public and with family approval involves inducing the female to take up the sperm package into her genital opening without actual copulation. In groups such as dragonflies A dragonfly is a type of insect belonging to the order Odonata, the suborder Epiprocta or, in the strict sense, the infraorder Anisoptera. It is characterized by large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and an elongated body. Dragonflies are similar to damselflies, but the adults can be differentiated by the fact that the and many spiders Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat, males extrude sperm into secondary copulatory structures removed from their genital opening, which are then used to inseminate the female (in dragonflies, it is a set of modified sternites The sternum is the ventral portion of a segment of an arthropod thorax or abdomen on the second abdominal segment; in spiders, it is the male pedipalps Pedipalps , are the second pair of appendages of the prosoma in the subphylum Chelicerata. They are traditionally thought to be homologous with mandibles in Crustacea and insects, although more recent studies (e.g. using Hox genes) suggest they are probably homologous with the crustacean second antennae). In advanced groups of insects, the male uses its aedeagus, a structure formed from the terminal segments of the abdomen, to deposit sperm directly (though sometimes in a capsule called a "spermatophore A spermatophore is a capsule or mass created by males of various animal species, containing spermatozoa and transferred in entirety to the female's ovipore during copulation. It may contain nourishment for the female, in which case it is called a nuptial gift, although in many species the "gift" provides little nutrient value") into the female's reproductive tract.
Other animals reproduce sexually with external fertilization, including many basal vertebrates Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with backbones or spinal columns. About 58,000 species of vertebrates have been described. Vertebrata is the largest subphylum of chordates, and contains many familiar groups of large land animals. Vertebrates comprise cyclostomes, bony fish, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles,. Vertebrates (such as reptiles Reptiles are animals in the class Reptilia characterized by breathing air, a "cold-blooded" (poikilothermic) metabolism, laying tough-shelled amniotic eggs (or retaining the same membrane system in species with live birth), and skin with scales or scutes. They are tetrapods (either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed, some fish A fish is any aquatic vertebrate animal that is covered with scales, and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins. Most fish are "cold-blooded", or ectothermic, allowing their body temperatures to vary as ambient temperatures change. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water. They can be found in nearly all aquatic, and most birds Birds are winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most varied of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) Bee Hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) Ostrich) reproduce with internal fertilization through cloacal In zoological anatomy, a cloaca is the posterior opening that serves as the only such opening for the intestinal, reproductive, and urinary tracts of certain animal species. The word comes from Latin, and means sewer. All birds, reptiles, and amphibians possess this orifice, from which they excrete both urine and feces, unlike placental mammals, copulation (see also hemipenis Hemipenes are usually held inverted, within the body, and are everted for reproduction via erectile tissue like that in the human penis. Only one is used at a time, and some evidence indicates males alternate use between copulations. The hemipenis itself has a variety of shapes, depending on species. Often the hemipenis bears spines or hooks, in), while mammals Mammals are a class of vertebrate, air-breathing animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by hair and/or fur, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain. Some mammals have sweat glands, but most do not copulate vaginally.
Copulation may or may not be related to reproduction, for example chimpanzees Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species: and especially bonobos are known to copulate when the female is not fertile, presumably for pleasure, which in turn strengthens social bonds. See also sexual intercourse and human sexual behavior.
In plants and fungi
See also: Plant sexualityLike in animals, mating in other Eukaryotes, such as plants Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The scientific study of plants, known as botany, has identified about 350,000 extant species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies. As of 2004, and fungi A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. The Fungi (pronounced /ˈfʌndʒaɪ/ or /ˈfʌŋɡaɪ/) are classified as a kingdom that is separate from plants, animals and bacteria. One major difference is that fungal cells have cell, denotes sexual conjugation. However, in vascular plants this is mostly achieved without physical contact between mating individuals (see pollination Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilization and sexual reproduction. Pollen grains, which contain the male gametes to where the female gamete(s) are contained within the carpel; in gymnosperms the pollen is directly applied to the ovule itself. The receptive part of the carpel is called a), and in some cases, e.g., in fungi no distinguishable male or female organs exist (see isogamy Isogamy refers to a form of sexual reproduction involving gametes of similar morphology, differing only in allele expression in one or more mating-type regions. Since both gametes look alike, they cannot be classified as "male" or "female." Instead, organisms undergoing isogamy are said to have different mating types, most); however, mating types Mating types occur in eukaryotes that undergo sexual reproduction via isogamy. Since the gametes of different mating types look alike, they are often referred to by numbers, letters, or simply "+" and "-" instead of "male" and "female." Mating can only take place between different mating types in some fungal species are somewhat analogous to sexual dimorphism in animals, and determine whether or not two individual isolates can mate.
See also
External links
- Media related to Animal sex at Wikimedia Commons
- Introduction to Animal Reproduction
- Advantages of Sexual Reproduction
Categories: Mating | Developmental biology | Ethology | Fertility | Reproduction | Sexology | Sexuality
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