Meiosis has two magor divisions. After the first major division, there are two diploid cells. It is during the second meiotic division that the sister chromatids, from each of the two diploid cells, separates. The second meiotic division is similar to mitosis and consists of Prophase II, Metaphase II, Anaphase II, Telophase II, and Cytokinesis II.
During Prophase II if there has been an interkinesis, the nuclear membrane and nucleoli break apart. Spindle fibers appear during this phase. It is important to remeber that there was no DNA replication prior to Prophase II.
In Metaphase II the chromosomes align on the metaphase plate. The kinetochores of the sister chromatids point toward opposite poles.
In Anaphase II the centromeres of the sister chromatids separate. They are now individual chromosomes and move toward opposite poles.
In Telophase II nucli begin to form at the two opposite ends and Cytokinesis II occurs. Now there are four daughter cells that are similair but different from each other. These four doughter cells are similair because they were originally duplicated from the same two parent chromosomes. But through the first meiotic division's crossing over and random assortment were genes were swited around so that one doughter cell may have a gene that codes for the fathers eyes and another daughter cell may have a gene that codes for the mothers eyes.
Hawley Lab. This site gives good overall information on meiosis in understandable terms along with some more advanced information on DNA such as the Holliday junction and heteroduplex DNA. DNA repair and work done on the fruit fly Drosphilia melanogaster is also presented.
Meiosis Outline. A good outline of meiosis and all of its divisions are given here. Several diagrams and related links are also given here.
WWW Cell. This link is to a teacher's course notes. These notes are very informative and cover a lot of basic biology. This page would be very useful for anyone beginning in biology.
Synapsis allows the maternal chromosome to pair up with its paternal homolog. Then if crossing over does occur this will lead to diversity. Reduction is the decreasing of 2n to n. This also leads to diversity because the cells which receive the reduced number of chromosomes is random and their fertilization thereafter is also random.
Synapsis and lots more gives a complete explanation about cell reproduction including synapsis.