Rheinwald G. (1975) The pattern of settling distances in a population of House Martins Delichon urbica. ARDEA 63 (3-4): 136-145

The term 'dispersion' should be used exclusively to denote the distribution pattern of organisms in space. For the distribution relative to a site occupied before the descriptive term 'frequency pattern of the settling distances' is chosen. As a result of an eight-year study in a village near Stuttgart the pattern of settling distances of the House Martin is given. This pattern can be described very well by the hyperbola y =. It is demonstrated that 'average settling distance' and '50%-distances' are no useful measures for the pattern of settling distances. On the contrary, the 'half-distance' seems, to be useful for the comparison of different species (either populations or parts of populations). It is the distance at which half of the total area under the curve is covered; the curve is the mathematical description of the frequency pattern of the settling distances.