Mutation and the Tree of Life

 Mutation is an alteration in an organism's genetic makeup. This alteration can be caused by various reasons, including, but not limited to, environmental causes, chemical exposure, or natural occurrence during childhood development. For example, you can see in the illustration a tree of life of an organism in a population, called wagbot. All the wagbots in this area are gray because they have the highest survival rate with this fur color. However, one wagbot (Ⅱ-Ⅱ) experienced a mutation because his mother (Ⅰ-Ⅱ) did not receive enough nutrients while he was developing, causing him to be a shade of red at birth. We can tell this alteration was a mutation because his parents and siblings lack the genetic material to cause red fur. 

This mutation can be neutral, beneficial, or harmful to the wagbots. For example, this mutation will be beneficial for the red wagbots if it increases their survival rates compared to the gray wagbots. With higher survival rates, the red wagbots will most likely reproduce more often and survive for longer, leading to more red wagbots in the population than gray wagbots over time. However, this mutation will be harmful for the red wagbots if it leads to a higher mortality rate compared to the gray wagbots. With higher mortality rates, the red wagbots will most likely die off before they can reproduce, leading to the gray wagbots continuing to stay dominant in the population. Finally, this mutation will be neutral for the red wagbots if it does not affect or change their ability to survive. This will most likely lead to both phenotypes coexisting in the population, or the red and gray wagbots evolving into different species types over time.