Allelic heterogeneity is the phenomenon in which different mutations at the same locus lead to the same or very similar phenotypes. These allelic variations can arise as a result of natural selection processes, as a result of exogenous mutagens, genetic drift, or genetic migration. Many of these mutations take the form of single nucleotide polymorphisms in which a single nucleotide base is altered compared to a consensus sequence. They can also exist as copy number variants (CNV) in which the copies of a gene or DNA sequence is different from the population.