GGG and GGC are codons for the amino acid,glycine.A mutation caused the insertion of a cytosine in place of the guanine during DNA replication.Over many generations the DNA changes so that the frequency of GGC is similar to that of GGG.What is this phenomenon called?
A)directional selection
B)bottleneck effect
C)stabilizing selection
D)adaptive variation
E)neutral variation

Question

GGG and GGC are codons for the amino acid,glycine.A mutation caused the insertion of a cytosine in place of the guanine during DNA replication.Over many generations the DNA changes so that the frequency of GGC is similar to that of GGG.What is this phenomenon called? 
A)directional selection 
B)bottleneck effect 
C)stabilizing selection 
D)adaptive variation 
E)neutral variation

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This phenomenon is called neutral variation. The mutation that occurred did not result in a change in the amino acid sequence of the protein, thus it did not have any impact on the fitness of the organism. Over time, the frequency of the mutated allele may increase or decrease due to random genetic drift, resulting in similar frequencies of the original and mutated codons. This type of change is considered neutral as it does not affect the phenotype or fitness of the organism.

GGG and GGC Are Codons for the Amino Acid,glycine