Intra-specific Variations in the Movement Patterns of Marine Animals

A wealth of information exists on the distribution and movement patterns of marine animals, based chiefly on tagging experiments, research surveys and commercial catch records. Three basic patterns emerge from these studies: migration, dispersal and home range, with species-specific permutations on these patterns. This paper reviews and discusses some of the intra-specific variations on these general movement patterns. Variations may take the form of range expansions, manifestations of inter-annual variation in oceanographic conditions, population-specific patterns, and variations apparently related to habitat quality, sex or age.