adverb
definition
In an asexual manner; without having sex.
example
Amoebas reproduce asexually.
Examples of asexually in a Sentence
The Coccidae can, and mainly do, breed asexually (parthenogenetically).
The individual is the product of sexual reproduction; a person is an individual of lower rank, which may be produced asexually.
This genus also propagates asexually, like Ctenodrilus, which may possibly belong to the same family.
This fact gave rise in ancient times to the false idea that the tapeworm originated from the union of these segments; and in modern times it has led to the view that the tapeworm is not a segmented organism (the monozoic view), but is a colony composed of the scolex which arises from the embryo and of the proglottides, which are asexually produced buds that, upon or before attaining their full size and maturity, become separated, grow, and, in some cases, live freely for a time, just as the segments of a strobilating jelly-fish grow, separate and become sexual individuals (the polyzoic view).
On this view, therefore, at least two asexual generations (embryo and scolex) alternate with a sexual one (proglottides); and in the case of Staphylocystis the cyst contains two asexually produced generations, so that in such forms three stages (embryo, primary scolex-buds, secondary scolices) intervene between the proglottis of a Cestode and that of its offspring.
This anomalous phenomenon is still obscure, for we do not yet know whether the second embryo is developed sexually or asexually from the first.
The reproduction of the higher plants takes place either asexually by the formation of buds or organs answering thereto, or sexually by the production of an embryo plant within the seed.
Whether a spore results from the sexual union of two similar gametes (zygospore) or from the fertilization of an egg-cell by the protoplasm of a male organ (oospore); or is developed asexually as a motile (zoospore) or a quiescent body cut off from a hypha (conidium) or developed along its course (oidium or chlamydospore), or in its protoplasm (endospore), are matters of importance which have their uses in the classification and terminology of spores, though in many respects they are largely of academic interest.
They differ, however, in being also asexually reproduced.
The evidence that the correlation between sexually produced brethren is the same as that existing between the asexually repeated organs on an individual body renders it impossible to accept Weismann's view that one of the results produced by the differentiation of animals and plants into two sexes is an increase in the variability of their offspring.
One view, the monozoic, regards the whole development as a prolonged metamorphosis; another, the polyzoic view, considers that not only is the Cestode a colony, the proglottides being produced asexually, but that the scolex which buds off these individuals is itself a bud produced by the spherical embryo or onchosphere.
There is therefore in a large class, of cases an indication that the variability of an array of brethren, produced either sexually or asexually, is a constant fraction of the variability of the race to which the brethren belong.