User:Jtwsaddress42/Projects/Project 2/Sections/Chapter 3/The ''Germ'' & ''Soma'' - Meiotic & Mitotic Pathways

Buss traces the ideas of somatic selection in animals to the great nineteenth century biologist August Weismann (January 17, 1834 – November 5, 1914) and this theory of germ plasm, where the cells of the body follow one of two distinct paths: Germ or Soma.

In animals the meiotic pathway is the path of the germ line - and, leads to the production of genetically recombinant individuals in the next generation. Aside from amplifying the germ line population in anticipation of reproduction; the mitotic pathway is clonal and the destiny of the Soma. Within the developing animal these cells in the mitotic pathway will experience increasingly reproductively-inhibitory mechanistic interaction with their neighbors that are the result of somatic selection; essentially limiting their reproductivity by inducing them to differentiate into the morphologically specialized cytoskeletal architectures that define the cell types of the animal body plan.

The Soma will provided a protective cordon through the environment for the germ line to successfully reproduce without degradation from environmental damage, which has been borne by the Soma instead.