Why Is Mutation an Important Element in Accounting for the Variation

question 59

Essay

Why is mutation an important element in accounting for the variation in mtDNA? What are the factors that redistribute genetic variation?

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Definitions:

Probabilities

The measure of the likelihood that an event will occur, represented as a number between 0 and 1, where 1 indicates certainty.

Binomial Random Variable

A type of random variable that represents the number of successes in a sequence of n independent experiments.

Normal Approximation

A method used in statistics to approximate a binomial distribution with a normal distribution when the sample size is large and the probability of success is not too close to 0 or 1.

Cumulative Binomial Probabilities

The sum of probabilities of achieving a given number of successes in a fixed number of Bernoulli trials.