Understand that many mutations are harmful but some are neutral and a few are beneficial
The process of mutation creates new alleles.
As the alleles are responsible for the phenotype, the impact could be that they are beneficial, harmful, or neutral (no effect).
Example:
Beneficial - improve efficiency of enzyme
Harmful - mutation leads to production of enzyme that doesn't work (nonfunctional)
Neutral - the mutation leads to a second or new allele that has no particular affect. However, the neutrality might not last forever due to environmental change, etc, which in time can make it become beneficial or harmful.
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