Habit (biology)

Habit, equivalent to habitus in some applications in biology, refers variously to aspects of behaviour or structure, as follows: In zoology, habit (not to be confused with habitus as described below) usually refers to a specific behavior pattern, either adopted, learned, pathological, innate, or directly related to physiology.

It may refer to the locomotor capabilities, as in "(motile habit", sessile, errant, sedentary), feeding behaviour and mechanisms, nutrition mode (free-living, parasitic, holozoic, saprotrophic, trophic type), type of habitat (terrestrial, arboreal, aquatic, marine, freshwater, seawater, benthic, pelagic, nektonic, planktonic, etc.

), period of activity (diurnal, nocturnal), types of ecological interaction, etc.

[4] In botany, habit is the general appearance, growth form, or architecture.

Other terms in biology refer similarly to various taxa; for example: Since the distinction between the concepts – mode of behavior and morphological form – are significant in zoology, the term habitus (from which the word habit derives) is used to describe form as distinct from behaviour (habit).