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In this paper, we introduce a new type of relation between knots called the descendant relation. One knot is a descendant of another knot if can be obtained from a minimal crossing diagram of by some number of crossing changes. We explore properties of the descendant relation and study how certain knots are related, paying particular attention to those knots, called fertile knots, that have a large number of descendants. Furthermore, we provide computational data related to various notions of knot fertility and propose several open questions for future exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove a version of symmetric criticality for ropelength-critical knots. Our theorem implies that a knot or link with a symmetric representative has a ropelength-critical configuration with the same symmetry. We use this to construct new examples of ropelength-critical configurations for knots and links which are different from the ropelength minima for these knot and link types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]