Deleterious mutations are harmful changes in an organism's genetic material that decrease its chances of survival and reproduction.
Think of deleterious mutations as bugs in a computer program. These bugs can cause the program to malfunction or even crash, just like how these mutations can lead to diseases or health problems.
Genetic Disorder: A disease caused by deleterious mutations in one or more genes, similar to a computer program not working due to bugs.
Fitness: In evolutionary terms, fitness refers to an organism's ability to survive and reproduce. Deleterious mutations decrease an organism's fitness, much like how bugs can make a computer program less useful.
Natural Selection: Again, this is the process where organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. Deleterious mutations often get weeded out through natural selection - it’s like users abandoning buggy software for better functioning ones.
Study guides for the entire semester
200k practice questions
Glossary of 50k key terms - memorize important vocab
© 2024 Fiveable Inc. All rights reserved.
AP® and SAT® are trademarks registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse this website.