Animal distribution, as a biological process, refers to the spatial and temporal patterns by which animal populations occupy, colonize, and persist in habitats across landscapes and ecosystems. It emerges from the interaction of species-specific dispersal mechanisms, behavioral habitat selection, population dynamics, and biotic interactions such as competition, predation, and mutualism, constrained by abiotic gradients including climate, topography, and resource availability. This process underlies biogeographic patterns, metapopulation structure, range limits, and community assembly, and is quantitatively studied using approaches such as species distribution modeling, spatial ecology, landscape genetics, and movement ecology to link organismal traits and environmental heterogeneity to observed occurrence and abundance.
Biologists have long wondered why caribou are the only deer in the world in which females—like males—have antlers. A study of shed antlers collected from calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides a new ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 24, 2026
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48
While killer whales (Orcinus orca) can trigger the immediate departure of white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), extended absences from their aggregation sites are also part of the sharks' natural behavior, new research reveals.
Ecology
Feb 18, 2026
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791
Research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) sheds new light on how mountain birds adapt to changes in climate. Scientists know that species diversity changes as you go up a mountain, but it is not clearly understood ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 6, 2026
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29
A single queen in the tropics; large colonies in deserts; workers with uniform morphology in temperate regions; ant social structures vary according to environmental conditions. This is shown, for the first time at a global ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 4, 2026
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37
Cephalopods—the class of animals that comprises octopuses and squids—are ubiquitous throughout the ocean, including in the deep sea. However, researchers still don't know very much about the distribution, diversity and behaviors ...
From village dogs to toy poodles to mastiffs, dogs come in an astonishing array of shapes, colors and sizes. Today there are estimated to be about 700 million dogs living with or around humans.
Evolution
Nov 15, 2025
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244
Snailfish living in deep-sea trenches in the Pacific and Indian oceans may have wider geographic distributions than previously thought, according to a researcher at The University of Western Australia.
Plants & Animals
Sep 30, 2025
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19
New fossil research shows how human impacts, particularly through the rise of agriculture and livestock, have disrupted natural mammal communities as profoundly as the Ice Age extinctions.
Ecology
Sep 30, 2025
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380
Despite being one of the largest animals on the planet, the limited population and vast territory of the North Atlantic right whale make tracking these behemoths challenging. Yet, accurate predictions of their distribution—and ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 16, 2025
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17
Animals and plants around the world are not randomly distributed. They appear to follow trends and patterns. But it's often difficult to figure out if the patterns we see in the natural world actually hold true. To prove ...
Evolution
Sep 3, 2025
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250
