Asexual reproduction is a remarkable feature of perennial fruit crops that facilitates the faithful propagation of commercially valuable individuals by avoiding the uncertainty associated with the ...

For most living things, sexual reproduction has proven the best overall strategy to perpetuate a species in the rough-and-tumble, unpredictable fray of natural selection. With two partners combining ...

The vast majority of animals need to breed to reproduce. But a small subset of animals can have offspring without mating. The process, called parthenogenesis, allows creatures from honey bees to ...

This story appears in the November 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. In sexual reproduction—the way most life-forms procreate—each parent provides half an offspring’s chromosomes. Over ...