Patterns of Population Growth and Dispersal

Abstract

Bacteria in our gut, insects in a field, trees in a forest, and plants borne by air and water around the world are among the many examples of spatial distributions of organisms that are important and interesting to study. Mechanisms of pattern formation and dispersal operate on a wide range of spatial scales from microscopic random movements to long-distance transport by air or water. On the other hand, organisms can also reflect uneven distributions of nutrients or toxins in their growth patterns. These are important, for example, in palenology, where the distributions of microbial fossils are used to find oil, and they provide places to look for new species of microbes, such as petroleum-digesting bacteria that are now used to clean oil tanks.