Range fractionation is a term used in biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

. Sense

Sense

Senses are physiological capacities of organisms that provide inputs for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology , and philosophy of perception...

 organs are usually composed of many sensory receptor

Sensory receptor

In a sensory system, a sensory receptor is a sensory nerve ending that responds to a stimulus in the internal or external environment of an organism...

s measuring the same property. These sensory receptors show a limited degree of precision due to an upper limit in firing rate

Action potential

In physiology, an action potential is a short-lasting event in which the electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly rises and falls, following a consistent trajectory. Action potentials occur in several types of animal cells, called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, and...

. If the receptors are endowed with distinct transfer function

Transfer function

A transfer function is a mathematical representation, in terms of spatial or temporal frequency, of the relation between the input and output of a linear time-invariant system. With optical imaging devices, for example, it is the Fourier transform of the point spread function i.e...

s in such a way that the points of highest sensitivity are scattered along the axis of the quality being measured, the precision of the sense organ as a whole can be increased. This was shown for the chordotonal organ

Chordotonal organ

Chordotonal organs are stretch receptor organs in insects and other arthropods They are used to detect the position of the body segments and appendages, or, in tympanal organs, the vibrations caused by sounds. An example for hearing is the Johnston's organ at the base of the antennae. Sound waves...

 in the locust

Locust

Locusts are the swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers of the family Acrididae. These are species that can breed rapidly under suitable conditions and subsequently become gregarious and migratory...

leg by Usherwood, Runion & Campbell (1968).

Literature

P. N. R. Usherwood and H. Runion and J. Campbell, Structure and physiology of a chordotonal organ in the locust leg, Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 48, pp. 305—323, 1968.