Abstract
This review incorporates the available published information on the distribution and dynamics of habitat use for flatfishes based on over 317 published papers in the peer‐reviewed literature. This includes the abiotic (temperature, salinity, depth, substratum type) and biotic (vegetation, refuges, prey resources) variables that influence habitat use including the roles of settlement, ontogeny, migrations and short (diel, tidal, seasonal, episodic) and long (annual, decadal) temporal scales. An additional focus is on the spatial dynamics of habitat use with distinction between ‘use’ and ‘selection’ where possible.