Question

In some species of plants, mutations can cause a plant to have different patterns on their leaves, such as gold edges or white stripes. Plants with different patterns grow to the same size and produce offspring with similar patterns. However, these plants can have high mutation rates. As a result, a group of related plants can exhibit many patterns.

Which of the following statements does this example support?
A.
A mutation that is not helpful to an organism's survival will not be passed on.
B.
Organisms choose not to produce proteins from harmful mutations.
C.
A mutation that has neutral effects on an organism's survival can be passed on to offspring.
D.
Organisms increase their rate of mutations to add genetic variation to their species.

Answer 1

C.

The example shows the leaf-pattern mutations don't affect growth or survival but are inherited by offspring, so neutral mutations can be passed on. The other options either state incorrect causation (B, D) or are contradicted by neutral inheritance (A).