What happens to the gametophyte as the sporophyte matures?

Question

What happens to the gametophyte as the sporophyte matures?

Answer 1

Depends on what plant you are talking about.  In mosses and the like, the gametophyte remains the dominant part of the life cycle.  In many ferns the gametophyte is crushed or displaced by the dominant sporophyte.  In some gymnosperms such as pines, the megagametophyte forms part of the food reserves in the seed.  In  angiosperms the part of the megagametophyte not used to form the zygote (i.e., egg) or endosperm (i.e., polar nuclei) is generally crushed  by the developing embryo and/or endosperm.  The microgametophyes of gymno- and angiosperms are destroyed when they release sperm during ferilization.