Are you perfect?

Would the world be better with more of you?

Sheldon Cooper thinks so

So did Arnold Schwarzenegger

And Paul Rudd..... 

So do Succulents and Strawberries

Asexual Reproduction is the creation of a new organism without sex

Because there is no sex, there is no sharing of genes

Thus, asexual reproduction creates offspring that are identical to the parent

They are effectively clones of the parent

This is advantageous if you want to make a whole lot of yourself fast

You don't need to look for a sexual partner

You don't need to worry about fertilization

This is great if your genes make you ideally suited for your environment and if colonizing your environment quickly is to your benefit - like by reducing interspecies competition

Because of this, this method of reproduction is popular with: 

1. Fungi

2. Bacteria

3. Plants

4. Sheldon Cooper

Each offspring, or progeny are identical

They are clones

This is bad if the environment changes

If everyone is the same, then they have the same strengths .... but also the same weaknesses

Because of these weaknesses a world full of Paul Rudds could be bad

A diverse population means that someone's weakness is compensated for by the strength of the others in their group

There is strength in diversity

You can only get diverse individuals by mixing up the alleles

You can only mix up the alleles by having sex

Because of this strength, these asexual creatures can also have sex

Fungi, Bacteria and Plants all have ways to share genetic material, to mix up their alleles for each gene and to have sex

So the succulents mentioned earlier can quickly colonize an area by asexual reproduction (budding). Then, they can flower and share their pollen with other succulents, thus having plant sex. They then make little seeds in their seed pods - these seeds are tiny and are dispersed on the wind

When they land and grow into new plants they will have unique strengths due to them having 2 alleles for each gene from 2 different plants. Thus if there is an environmental change, such as drought, that kills the other plant there is a chance that this genetically different plant could survive

If it does, then it must have an allele that makes it more drought resistant than its parent. So it may as well colonize the are quickly - through asexual reproduction - Genetically identical babies, and then these can flower in the hope of receiving pollen, carried to them by a bee, from a succulent plant far away that has different alleles. Thus creating more genetically diverse babies.