AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The majority of mutations have neither negative nor positive effects on the organism in which they occur. These mutations are called neutral mutations.

Detailed explanation-2: -Neutral mutations are changes in DNA sequence that are neither beneficial nor detrimental to the ability of an organism to survive and reproduce.

Detailed explanation-3: -Mutations can be neutral, harmful, or beneficial, though the neutral theory of molecular evolution predicts that most mutations are “nearly” neutral or only slightly deleterious, while beneficial mutations-which confer a survival advantage on an organism and, if it reproduces, on its progeny-are quite rare.

Detailed explanation-4: -Answer and Explanation: Mutations are almost always neutral because they are silent mutations. Mutations can occur because on nucleotide is replaced by another, a section may be changed with another or inserted and a gene could be duplicated. They don’t occur as a result of the environment, they just happen.

Detailed explanation-5: -Examples include silent point mutations, which are neutral because they do not change the amino acids in the proteins they encode. Many other mutations have no effects on the organism because they are repaired before protein synthesis occurs. Cells have multiple repair mechanisms to fix mutations in DNA.