Table 1.

Frequency of usage of terms referring to movement

Taxa	Studies, n	Percentage, %
General terms for movement
Dispersal	293	38.4
Migration	165	21.6
Movement	134	17.5
Gene flow	5	0.7
Other general terms*	15	2.0
Modes and patterns of movement
Foraging	17	2.2
Diel vertical migration	11	1.4
Long-distance dispersal	11	1.4
Home range	9	1.2
Vertical migration	9	1.2
Homing	6	0.8
Nomadism	6	0.8
Other modes/patterns†	21	2.7
What is moving
Seed dispersal	43	5.6
Larval dispersal	9	1.2
Other terms‡	5	0.7
Narrow movement terms
Diel vertical migration	11	1.4
Vertical migration	9	1.2
Other narrow terms§	7	0.9

The analysis is based on a sampling of the first term encountered in 1,000 papers, resulting in 764 relevant term usages. A separate draw of 1,000 papers was made from Table 1.

*Additional terms: transport (3 studies), locomotor activity (2 studies), diffusion (2 studies), gene dispersal, passage, habitat use, distance traveled, site fidelity, population connectivity, interconnectivity, and traverse.

^†Includes flight (4 studies), natal dispersal (3 studies), swimming (2 studies), zoochory (2 studies), hydrochory (2 studies), diel migration, diel movement, vertical dispersal, habitat shifts, flight performance, ballooning, walking activity, and orientation.

^‡Includes pollen flow (2 studies), spore dispersal, pollen dispersal, and seed rain. Terms that are implicitly about a particular kind of organism (e.g., hydrochory for aquatic seed dispersal) and do not use the name of the item moving in the term were not included in this category.

^§Includes zoochory (2 studies), hydrochory (2 studies), diel migration, diel movement, vertical dispersal.