Question: Inside the sporangium ,does the nuclei divide mitotically or meiotically?

Grace Kago answered on 4 Jun 2019: last edited 4 Jun 2019 3:00 am

Hello!

Ok: This isn’t my area of expertise, but a search on the topic seems to conclude that it depends on the organism and whether it’s reproducing asexually or not? I’ve listed some of what I found below:

According to one source about Fungi ” The most common mode of asexual reproduction is through the formation of asexual spores, which are produced by one parent only (through mitosis) and are genetically identical to that parent. Spores allow fungi to expand their distribution and colonize new environments. They may be released from the parent thallus, either outside or within a special reproductive sac called a sporangium.”
Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-biology/chapter/characteristics-of-fungi/

Ok: now this next source talks about the life cycle of a moss (genus Polytrichum). It says ” Cells within the sporangium of the sporophyte undergo meiosis to produce male and female spores respectively”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9980/

This last source discusses angiosperms, in this case pea plants (genus Pisum). It says ” The sporophyte is the dominant generation, but multicellular male and female gametophytes are produced within the flowers of the sporophyte. Cells of the microsporangium within the anther undergo meiosis to produce microspores.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9980/