Question

Which sentence describes why meiosis and fertilization produce genetic variation? a) Meiosis reduces the number of chromosomes, while fertilization restores the full set of chromosomes. b) Meiosis shuffles and recombines alleles, while fertilization introduces new combinations of alleles. c) Meiosis produces haploid cells, while fertilization produces diploid cells. d) Meiosis and fertilization both involve the exchange of genetic material between homologous chromosomes.

Answer 1

The sentence that describes why meiosis and fertilization produce genetic variation is:

**b) Meiosis shuffles and recombines alleles, while fertilization introduces new combinations of alleles.**

Meiosis involves the recombination and segregation of alleles on homologous chromosomes, resulting in genetically unique haploid cells. Fertilization then combines these unique haploid cells from two parents, leading to offspring with a combination of alleles not present in either parent, thus increasing genetic variation.