Question

Name 2 processes that could result in variation in a population and why?...Explain the two and their actual causes in variation.

Answer 1

Two causes of population variation are natural selection and genetic mutation. Natural selection is a non random force that filters a species to leave only the best species from an evolutionary stand point. Genetic mutations are random and can cause slight variations.

Answer 2

oh, thank you very much. but um, how does genetic mutations cause variation?

Answer 3

There are different types of genetic mutations. Missense, Nonsense, and silent mutations. A non sense mutation will cause a change in the nucleotides so that it makes no sense at all and does not code for any amino acids. That causes whatever gene that coded for to be dysfunctional. A silent mutation is, as the name implies, silent. Although there was a change in nucleotides, the new nucleotide sequence codes for the same amino acid as it originally did. But what mutation that might cause variation is a missense mutation. These mutations have a change in nucleotides that still code for a functional amino acid, but it's a different amino acid than the original sequence coded for. So for instance if a gene coded for some trait, and a missense mutation caused a change to a new amino acid, this might create a new trait.