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Top Subjects. Our Company. Varsity Tutors. Privacy Policy. Terms of Use. Ecosystem succession, also called "ecological succession," is the process through which a natural community of plants and animals changes after a disturbance. It is generally understood that ecological succession is a progressive movement towards the most stable community also called a "climax community".
This kind of succession is the manner through which natural communities respond to disturbances and changes. Disturbances to natural communities can be both elemental and man-made. Fires, floods, wind storms, landslides, and avalanches are some examples of elemental ecological disturbances. While logging, mining, farming and urbanization are examples of man-made disturbances. Primary ecosystem succession is when a community first forms in a newly created or exposed area such as a sand dune or bare rock surface, lava flow, or a new lake created by flooding.
In a sense, this is as if the community forms from a "clean slate" ecologically speaking. Secondary succession is when a community was disturbed by human or elemental forces. This form of succession tends to be much more rapid as some of the vital elements such as soil, nutrients and seeds are already present at the location at least to some extent.
An example of this kind of succession is a forest recovering from a major forest fire or logging event. Cyclical succession is when a community is changed by recurring events or changing interactions with species of plants or animals. An example of this is the repeated fire cycles of the coastal chaparral ecosystem of California. Read more about it below. For examples changes in sea level e.
Within the context of changes over ecological time succession can be identifies or classified as:. Primary succession — sequence of species replacements that follow often create a totally new habitat i. Secondary succession — occurs when there is some form of life already present, either as living or as decaying substance as in well developed soil. Most succession studies address this type. Climax — stage in community development in the successional process where the composition of the community is relatively permanent, as long as further disturbances do not occur.
Studies on temporal changes in communities began in the early 20 th century by plant ecologists. In Clementss the foremost proponent of the view that succession represented an orderly and predictable process analogous to embryological development. Succession in his view was highly deterministic and predictable and represented an emergent property of the system i. Each stage was required for the next culminating in establishment on a stable ecosystem - homeostatic view — where the climax stage achieves maximum resistance to disturbance.
Biological Stoichiometry. Sampling Biological Communities. Succession: A Closer Look. Dynamics of Predation. Ecological Consequences of Parasitism. Resource Partitioning and Why It Matters. Direct and Indirect Interactions.
Keystone Species. Citation: Emery, S. Nature Education Knowledge 3 10 What do volcanoes, glaciers, sand dunes, storms, agriculture, and fire have in common? They all initiate the process of succession in communities. Aa Aa Aa. The Role of Disturbance. In plant communities, succession begins when an area is made partially or completely devoid of vegetation because of a disturbance.
Disturbances can take many different forms, and can vary in intensity and size. Large, extreme disturbances such as volcanic eruptions or glacier retreat result in very slow succession due to complete mortality of all living individuals in the system, as well as loss of the entire soil complex. This type of succession is often called primary succession, as the soil, as well as all characteristic organisms, needs to re-establish.
Large, low intensity disturbances, such as plowing in conventional agriculture, result in moderate amounts of succession, where species can survive in the soil and quickly recolonize areas after a disturbance. Early successional communities are those that establish themselves relatively quickly after disturbance, while late successional communities are those that establish themselves much later.
Classic Perspectives of Succession. Figure 1: Chronosequences are often used to study succession. A Typical chronosequence for sand dune succession. Figure 2: Two contrasting views of succession. A The super-organism concept, where groups of species are tightly associated, and are supplanted by other groups of tightly associated species. Patterns and Mechanisms of Succession. Plant reestablishment 15 years after the debris avalanche at Mount St. Figure 4: Succession after glacier retreat.
Figure 5: Keever's observed pattern of succession in North Carolina agricultural old fields. Recent Research on Succession. Recently, ecologists have been developing mathematical models to better characterize and predict successional changes. For example, The Resource Ratio Hypothesis, proposed by David Tilman , models successional shifts in plant communities based on the assumption that succession is driven by a tradeoff in competition for nutrients in early succession, and for light in late succession.
Other researchers, such as Henry Horn have used transition matrix models and Markovian models to measure rates of succession and predict the outcomes of succession. Figure 6: Plant diversity increases throughout succession. Fields were last plowed in While the process of succession has been studied by ecologists since the turn of the 20th century, it is still very much a dynamic field of study today. Multiple, complex mechanisms can all interact to result in predictable patterns of change in communities over time.
Recently, ecologists have used principles of succession to inform the applied ecological fields of Restoration Ecology and Invasion Biology. References and Recommended Reading Bazzaz, F. Odum, E. The Strategy of Ecosystem Development. Science , Reiners, W.
Plant diversity in a chronosequence at Glacier Bay, Alaska. Ecology 52,
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