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.
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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383
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
Every living species on Earth has a unique geographical range, with some being widespread and others being very narrow. Several factors shape a species' range size—and one of them is the evolutionary age of a species.
Evolution
Aug 27, 2025
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22
A cross-institutional team of researchers from Macquarie University, UNSW and the University of Nebraska has unpicked the reasons why hundreds of bat and bird species across Central and South America live in close proximity. ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 30, 2025
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38
For billions of years, life has depended on Earth's rhythm of day and night. DNA codifies body clocks in all animals and plants, which helps their cells act according to this cycle of light and dark.
Environment
Jul 30, 2025
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23
The distribution of a deep-sea jellyfish species with two different traits hints at the existence of an unknown biogeographic barrier in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to new research by marine scientists at The University ...
Ecology
Jul 29, 2025
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23
The histories of sled dogs and humans in the Arctic have been intricately linked for thousands of years, so it is no surprise that the migration patterns of these dogs mirror those of humans through the Arctic. Sled dogs ...
A new study led by Dr. Aurélie Manin from the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford has traced the incredible journey of humankind's best friend across the Americas, showing how dogs slowly spread southward alongside ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 18, 2025
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