What is the importance of mitosis to plants and animals?

For the production of similar kinds of cells by replication ore duplication. Meiosis only occurs in germ cells for reproduction. In the other cells, where you want, by cell division, formation of daughter cells which have the same structure and function as the parent cell, you need mitosis. During mitosis, chromosomes are duplicated once, and cell divides once, therefore each daughter cell has equal chromosome number which is also equal to the mother cells. Hence it is genetically identical to the mother cell, and can perform the same function as the parent cell. It is very essential for producing somatic cells (non-germ cells) which are diploid.  more