Dispersion Patterns

Often, in addition to knowing the number and density of individuals in an area, ecologists will also want to know their distribution. Species dispersion patterns or distribution patterns refer to how the individuals in a population are distributed in space at a given time. The individual organisms that make up a population can be more or less equally spaced, dispersed randomly with no predictable pattern, or clustered in groups. These are known as uniform, random, and clumped dispersion patterns, respectively.