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Animal migration is the relatively long-distance movement of individual animals, usually on a seasonal basis. It is the most common form of migration in ecology. [5] It is found in all major animal groups, including birds, [6] mammals, [7] fish, [8] [9] reptiles, [10] amphibians, insects, [11] and crustaceans.
Plant habit refers to the overall shape of a plant, and it describes a number of components such as stem length and development, branching pattern, and texture. While many plants fit neatly into some main categories, such as grasses , vines , shrubs , or trees , others can be more difficult to categorise.
The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the specific dispersal mechanism, and this has important implications for the demographic and genetic structure of plant populations, as well as migration patterns and species interactions. There are five main modes of seed dispersal: gravity, wind, ballistic, water, and by animals.
Natural patterns are sometimes formed by animals, as in the Mima mounds of the Northwestern United States and some other areas, which appear to be created over many years by the burrowing activities of pocket gophers, [90] while the so-called fairy circles of Namibia appear to be created by the interaction of competing groups of sand termites ...
Also called range fragmentation, disjunct distributions may be caused by changes in the environment, such as mountain building and continental drift or rising sea levels; it may also be due to an organism expanding its range into new areas, by such means as rafting, or other animals transporting an organism to a new location (plant seeds consumed by birds and animals can be moved to new ...
Moving along narrow surfaces, such as a branch of a tree, can create special difficulties for animals who are not adapted to deal with balancing on small diameter substrates. During locomotion on the ground, the location of the center of mass may swing from side to side. But during arboreal locomotion, this would result in the center of mass ...
Fourthly, plant morphology examines the pattern of development, the process by which structures originate and mature as a plant grows. While animals produce all the body parts they will ever have from early in their life, plants constantly produce new tissues and structures throughout their life. A living plant always has embryonic tissues.
For example, along a new branch the leaves may vary in a consistent pattern along the branch. The form of leaves produced near the base of the branch differs from leaves produced at the tip of the plant, and this difference is consistent from branch to branch on a given plant and in a given species.