Question

In animals, mitotic cell division is only seen in diploid somatic cells whereas plants show mitotic division in both haploid and diploid cells. Explain.

Answer 1

Cell division is one of the most significant features of living cells. In this process, the cells divide to give rise to daughter cells and again daughter cells divide further and the process continues. The growth, development and reproduction depend on the process of cell division.

Complete answer:
The process through which a parent cell divides in a sequential way to give rise to two or more daughter cells are known as cell division. It is a unique feature of living cells and is a part of the cell cycle. In the eukaryotic cells, two different types of cell division occur which are mitotic cell division and meiotic cell division.
The mitotic cell division is the process in which a parent cell gives rise to two daughter cells and each daughter cell is genetically similar to the parent. In this process, the chromosomes from the parent cell are replicated and are separated into the two new nuclei. Mitotic cell division is also known as equatorial cell division.
In animals, the mitotic cell division occurs in the somatic cells and the number of chromosomes in the resultant two daughters is just the same as the parent cells. In animals, somatic cells are responsible for growth and development only. They are not involved in the sexual reproduction which involves the fusion of haploid cells from both the sexes. The gamete cells are the haploid cells and they undergo meiotic or reductional cell division to produce daughter cells with haploid chromosome numbers.
In the case of plants, both the haploid and diploid cells show mitotic cell division. It occurs in certain types of plants which show alteration of generation in their life cycles. During the alteration of generations in these plants, the haploid stage shows to undergo mitotic division. The most common examples of this type are shown by the gametophytes of group Bryophyta which shows mitotic cell division in the formation of spores from haploid cells.

Note: Mitotic cell division is also known as equatorial cell division and in this process, two daughter cells are produced by a single parent cell. It is an important cell division that occurs only in the somatic or diploid cells of the animals but in plants, it occurs in both haploid as well as diploid cells especially in the plants that show alteration of generations such as the Bryophytes.