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Discovering Meiosis: Key Contributors

Meiosis was first discovered in 1876 by Oscar Hertwig who observed it in sea urchin eggs. It was further described by Edouard Van Beneden in 1883 using chromosome levels in roundworm eggs and August Weismann in 1890 who noted that two cell divisions were needed to reduce the chromosome number. Thomas Hunt Morgan helped establish that genetic traits are transmitted on chromosomes when he observed crossovers during meiosis in fruit flies in 1911. Meiosis is a cell division process that reduces the chromosome number by half to create four haploid cells through two rounds of cell division following DNA replication.

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87 views1 page

Discovering Meiosis: Key Contributors

Meiosis was first discovered in 1876 by Oscar Hertwig who observed it in sea urchin eggs. It was further described by Edouard Van Beneden in 1883 using chromosome levels in roundworm eggs and August Weismann in 1890 who noted that two cell divisions were needed to reduce the chromosome number. Thomas Hunt Morgan helped establish that genetic traits are transmitted on chromosomes when he observed crossovers during meiosis in fruit flies in 1911. Meiosis is a cell division process that reduces the chromosome number by half to create four haploid cells through two rounds of cell division following DNA replication.

Uploaded by

Daphne Cuaresma
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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MEIOSIS

Oscar Hertwig (1876) – a German biologist who discovered and described meiosis for the first time in sea urchin
eggs.

Edouard Van Beneden (1883) - Belgian zoologist who described it again by the level of chromosomes of Ascaris
roundworm eggs.

August Weismann (1890) – a German biologist who described the significance of meiosis for reproduction and
inheritance and noted that two cell divisions were necessary to transform one diploid cell into four haploid cells if the
number of chromosomes had to be maintained.

Thomas Hunt Morgan (1911) - an American geneticist who detected crossovers in meiosis in the fruit fly Drosophila
melanogaster, which helped to establish that genetic traits are transmitted on chromosomes.

Meiosis is a special type of cell division that reduces the chromosome number by half, creating four haploid cells, each
genetically distinct from the parent cell that gave rise to them. This process occurs in all sexually reproducing single-
celled and multicellular eukaryotes, including animals, plants, and fungi. Meiotic cell divisions are an essential process
during oogenesis and spermatogenesis. Errors in meiosis resulting in aneuploidy are the leading known cause of
miscarriage and the most frequent genetic cause of developmental disabilities.

In meiosis, DNA replication is followed by two rounds of cell division to produce four daughter cells, each with half the
number of chromosomes as the original parent cell. The two meiotic divisions are known as Meiosis I and Meiosis II.

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