The Regulation of Meiosis

Abstract

In the preceding sections we have seen something of the course of meiosis in a variety of organisms and something of the events leading to meiosis in some of them. We have seen that a standard system—that generalised sequence which the elementary student learns along with the generalised cell—obtains with but minor variations in by far the majority of them. We have also seen that numerical and structural changes in the chromosome can alter the pairing arrangements of chromosomes and, thereby, they may change the mechanical units of orientation and disjunction. Finally we have seen too that the most bizarre sequences characterise some organisms, especially certain male animals. And, although the matter is not always amenable to direct experimental analysis, we must conclude that differences in the nucleus are responsible for determining the variation in their own meiotic behaviour (Table 96).