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Why do we even need meiosis?
Okay serious question. Mitosis is simple — one cell becomes two identical. Why do living things bother with this complicated meiosis thing with all its phases and crossing over? What’s the real advantage? Explain please.
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Look at this page for detailed phases of meiosis. The biggest reason is to prevent doubling of chromosomes every generation. If we only had mitosis, sperm + egg would give zygote with 92 chromosomes, then next generation 184 and so on — impossible. Meiosis cuts the number in half so fertilization brings it back to normal (46 in humans). Second huge reason is genetic variation. Crossing over in prophase I and random alignment in metaphase I create brand new combinations of alleles. This variation is the fuel for natural selection and evolution. Without meiosis sexual reproduction would not produce diversity and species would adapt much slower. So yes — complicated, but very useful and necessary.