Our understanding of reproduction and reproductive processes is often biased towards the behaviour of organisms most familiar to us. As such, the amazing disparity of the phenomena of reproduction and sex is often overlooked. Understanding Reproduction addresses all the main facets of this large chapter of the life sciences, including discussions of asexual reproduction, parthenogenesis, sex determination, reproductive effort, and much more. The book features an abundance of examples from across the tree of life, including animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria. Written in an accessible and easy to digest style, overcoming the intimidating diversity of the technical terminology, this book will appeal to interested general readers, biologists, science educators, philosophers and medical doctors.

Winner, 2024 Choice Awards

‘Fusco and Minelli provide a very clear and accessible overview of the strange and wonderful diversity of reproductive strategies and mechanisms in animals, plants and other organisms. They explain key concepts, define important terms, and place reproductive modes within an ecological and evolutionary context. This book will be a useful reference for biologists, students and even curious non-specialists.’

Russell Bonduriansky - University of New South Wales, Australia

‘As a plant biologist, I often find myself trying to explain reproduction in plants as though they are somehow an anomaly rather than just another way of reaching the same goal following first principles. This perception of anomaly comes from a pedagogical bias of teaching reproduction as ‘sex in mammals’. This book ties together concepts regardless of organism, drawing clear lines between a complex diversity of patterns and their underlying reproductive processes.’

Chelsea D. Specht - Barbara McClintock Professor in Plant Biology, Cornell University, USA

‘The authors' succinct transdisciplinary approach, and their use of explanations accessible to nonspecialists, makes this an ideal resource for a general audience as students in seminars … Highly recommended.’

A. L. Jacobsen Source: Choice

‘I learned something new on every page, and not always just details about weird reproduction: my understanding about important concepts, definitions, and mechanisms of reproduction has been qualitatively deepened by reading this book. On several occasions, even my paradigms were changed by a unique perspective presented in a compelling way. … I think that the volume represents a unique and valuable addition to the resources available to learn and teach about reproduction. It would be especially appropriate and inspiring as a core textbook for an upper-level undergraduate course or for a graduate seminar, and I suspect that students would return to it again and again after the course was over.’

Maurine Neiman Source: The Quarterly Review of Biology