This document summarizes the key differences between mitosis and meiosis: - Mitosis is used for asexual reproduction and somatic cell production in the body. It creates identical daughter cells from a parent cell. - Meiosis is used for sexual reproduction to create the gametes (sperm and egg cells) that have half the number of chromosomes. When gametes fuse during fertilization, the full number is restored. - There are two rounds of meiotic cell division. This leads to genetic variation between daughter cells as they are not identical, with different combinations of maternal and paternal chromosomes. This variation provides a survival advantage to offspring.