What typically happens to new mutations in a population?

New mutations in a population typically start off as rare occurrences. Because they arise in individual organisms, their initial frequency within the population is quite low. Over time, several factors can influence what happens to these mutations. Many mutations may fail to become established in the population and may disappear due to various genetic mechanisms such as genetic drift, selective pressure, or they may simply not provide any advantageous traits for survival and reproduction.

While some mutations can lead to beneficial traits that may increase in frequency due to natural selection, the majority are neutral or deleterious, leading to their eventual loss from the gene pool. Therefore, the most common outcome for most new mutations is that they are rare and may vanish from the population before they can impact allele frequencies significantly. This aligns with the idea that while mutations are the raw material for evolution, their fate in a given population is often not one of fixation or dominance but rather disappearance.