Final answer:
Mutations can be beneficial, harmful, or neutral. Beneficial mutations improve an organism's survival or reproductive abilities, while harmful mutations have negative effects. Neutral mutations do not affect an organism's fitness.
Step-by-step explanation:
The majority of mutations are considered neutral, meaning they neither confer a significant advantage nor a disadvantage to the organism's survival and reproduction.
Neutral mutations often occur in non-coding regions of the genome or in regions where the change in the DNA sequence does not affect the function of the encoded protein.
Harmful mutations can reduce an organism's fitness, making it less likely to survive and reproduce.
The frequency of harmful mutations is generally expected to be lower than neutral mutations, as natural selection tends to weed out detrimental changes from a population.
Beneficial mutations provide an advantage to the organism in its environment, increasing its chances of survival and reproduction.
While less common than neutral mutations, beneficial mutations are crucial for the evolutionary process, driving adaptation and the emergence of new traits.
It's important to note that the impact of a mutation can also depend on the context. A mutation that is harmful in one environment might be beneficial in another.