What are two ways meiosis can cause offspring to be genetically different from their parents?. Earth & Marine Sciences

Genetic recombination results in the exchange of DNA segments between pairs of chromosomes. This results in new combinations of alleles along the length of the chromosome. Only one of the pair of chromosomes will be included in each gamete, and thanks to independent assortment, the particular copy (e.g., maternal or paternal) of each chromosome included in a gamete is random. A sperm might inherit the maternal copy of one chromosome but the paternal copy of another. Mixed and matched across all of the different chromosomes, this process results in very different combinations of alleles from one sperm (or egg) to the next, which can cause sibling offspring to be genetically different from each other as well as from either parent.