Final answer:
Meiosis maintains diploid cells in offspring by producing haploid gametes that, upon fertilization, combine to restore the diploid state with the characteristic number of chromosomes, ensuring genetic diversity while maintaining chromosome numbers.
Step-by-step explanation:
Meiosis helps maintain diploid cells in an offspring by ensuring that each gamete produced will have half the number of chromosomes as the parent cell. Sexual reproduction requires that diploid organisms produce haploid cells through meiosis, which can then fuse during fertilization to form new, diploid offspring. This process allows for the combination of genetic material from both parents, which contributes to genetic diversity while maintaining the species' characteristic number of chromosomes.
In organisms with a diploid-dominant life cycle such as animals, meiosis occurs in specialized cells called germ cells. These cells undergo two rounds of nuclear division, meiosis I and meiosis II, to produce four haploid daughter cells, which are the gametes. This reduction from diploid to haploid ensures that when two gametes fuse, the resultant offspring has the correct diploid number of chromosomes. Thus, the fusion of two haploid gametes, one from each parent, during fertilization restores the diploid state, completing the cycle of sexual reproduction.