Abstract: Metapopulation is an important concept in several ecological fields, including population ecology, landscape ecology, and conservation biology. Recently, the term, metapopulation, has increasingly appeared in Chinese journal papers and book chapters in ecology. However, the multiple and distinctive Chinese translations of the term have inevitably caused confusion, and also seem to reflect differences in the understanding of the term, metapopulation, by the authors. Thus, this paper examines the definition of metapopulation and its evolution, and then discusses the appropriateness of the different Chinese translations.

Key words: Metapopulation, Patch, Metapopulation types