31a. the variety of genetic material within a species or population is called functional diversity 31b. deserts, tropical forests, prairie grasslands, and coniferous forests are all examples of biomes 32a. an organism's niche is analogous to its way of life. es of environmental disaster, a generalist species would have a good chance of survival 33a. an insect would be considered a generalist species. 33b. factors contributing to the decline in amphibian populations are loss and fragmentation of habitats, and pollution. 34a. cockroaches have a wide range of tolerance of environmental conditions. they are known then as specialist species 34b. intertidal species of seastar maintain diversity of the intertidal region by controlling the mussel population. without the seastar, the mussel population would crowd out other species and take over their territory. the seastar could be called a foundation species. 35a. human-made chemicals to which exposure can cause mutations are known as mutagens 35b. for natural selection to occur, a trait must be heritable. 36a. the bird species know to forage in shrublands after they have experienced a wildfire are very different from the bird species that forage in unburned shrublands. in fact, the bird species foraging in burned shrublands are closely correlated with the age of the burn, or the number of years that have passed since the fire. certain birds forage at one-year post fire, different birds forage at three-years post fire, and so on. these birds could be called indicator species 36b. mutations are random changes in the structure or number of dna molecules in a cell that inherited by offspring 37a. in a population of wild bees, a mutation resulted in slightly larger wingspan in some of t larger wingspan made the bees more efficient in their flights to flowers to collect nectar bees became more successful. this trait was passed on to offspring, and eventually the l variety of bee replaced their smaller-winged relatives completely. since the mutation pro specific wing trait that was passed on, the mutation must have occurred in reproductive c 37b. by definition, the fittest animals are the largest and strongest animals. 38a. the change in the genetic composition of a population is called natural selection 38b. differential reproduction occurs when organisms with adaptive genetic trait produce more living offspring than those without 39a. taxonomy describes the relationships among species which are displayed like a family tree 39b. in the theory of plate tectonics, the last super continent is known as pangaea. 40a. selective breeding is a method of artificial selection. sympatric speciation occurs when a geographic barrier separates the original population, and over time, the separated individuals are so different they can no longer breed. 40b.