colonization

Scientific  

/ kŏl′ə-nĭ-zā′shən /

1. The spreading of a species into a new habitat. For example, flying insects and birds are often the first animal species to initiate colonization of barren islands formed by vulcanism or falling water levels. The first plant species to colonize such islands are often transported there as airborne seeds or through the droppings of birds.

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Example Sentences

In 1823, President James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere off limits to European colonization.

From The Wall Street Journal

Three centuries of Danish colonization has spurred a range of resentments between the island’s Inuit residents and faraway Copenhagen.

From The Wall Street Journal

But for Caleb Scharf, an astrobiologist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a future of space colonization is written in the stars.

From The Wall Street Journal

Portuguese colonization beginning in 1500, the forced migration of roughly 4 million enslaved Africans, and later waves of European and Japanese immigration produced what the authors describe as the richest genetic diversity in the world.

From Science Daily

When Monroe declared the Americas off limits to “future colonization by any European powers,” the U.S. didn’t really have the means or motive to meddle abroad.

From The Wall Street Journal