Abstract: Wetland plays an important role in the global ecological balance and ecological safety. Comparatively, wetland has higher ecosystem diversity and structure complexity, and its classification is more difficult. All of these make misuses of English vocabulary for wetland terms common in related researches, which seriously impact the spreading and correct use of scientific research results. Based on the classic academic data in the field of wetland science, combining with field working experience, we describe the connotations of English vocabulary of wetland terms (swamp, marsh, peatland, mire, bog, fen), reveal the main distinguishing features through pairwise comparison of similar types of wetlands, and then sum up the main causes of confusion for wetland terms as follows: (1) language differences between different countries or regions; (2) differences in culture and research habits between different countries or regions; (3) difficulty in distinguishing the uniqueness of some wetlands; (4) changes in understanding of wetlands in different periods. This paper can provide scientific basis for the scholars and related persons who are engaged in wetland research and management to better promote the proper, wide spread of research results in the field of wetland science.

Key words: Ripley’s L function, mark correlation function, Antarctic krill, the northern Antarctic Peninsula, spatial point pattern