Man and Mer can create children together. Their genes are compatable. The offspring of the two parents would take mostly after the mother. So if a Nord male and a Altmer female had a child the child would count (for the most part) as Altmer.
In fact mer mixing with man is how we got the Bretons.
can the resulting offspring reproduce though? I suppose the Bretons can after all, so maybe the 2 aren't that genetically different. I just figured when you have 2 parents from different species mate the resulting offspring are sterile such as how mules are sterile and Ligers (at least the males anyway). Then again I'm not a biologie major it's just a hobby for me.