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Succession after disturbance: a boreal forest one year (left) and two years (right) after a wildfire.. Ecological succession is the process of change in the species that make up an ecological community over time.
Forest succession is the process by which species recover and regenerate after a disturbance. The type of disturbance, the climate and weather conditions, the presence of colonizing species, and the interactions among species all influence the path that succession will take. Species diversity and composition fluctuate throughout succession.
A characteristic that is often associated with the tolerance model and well documented in forest succession is survival in conditions of shade. [12] As an uninhabited area becomes populated by different plant species, shade increases – which makes less light available for the next generation.
The mixed age of the forest is an important criterion in ensuring that the forest is a relatively stable ecosystem in the long term. A climax stand that is uniformly aged becomes senescent and degrades within a relatively short time to result in a new cycle of forest succession. Thus, uniformly aged stands are less stable ecosystems.
Ecological succession, a fundamental concept in ecology, refers to more-or-less predictable and orderly changes in the composition or structure of an ecological community Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ecological succession .
Secondary succession is the secondary ecological succession of a plant's life. As opposed to the first, primary succession, secondary succession is a process started by an event (e.g. forest fire, harvesting, hurricane, etc.) that reduces an already established ecosystem (e.g. a forest or a wheat field) to a smaller population of species, and as such secondary succession occurs on preexisting ...
An image of ecological succession, starting with pioneer species and ending with an old-growth forest that is dominated by climax species, which is denoted by VIII. Climax species, also called late seral , late-successional , K-selected or equilibrium species, are plant species that can germinate and grow with limited resources; e.g., they need ...
One example of primary succession takes place after a volcano has erupted. The lava flows into the ocean and hardens into new land. The resulting barren land is first colonized by pioneer organisms, like algae, which pave the way for later, less hardy plants, such as hardwood trees, by facilitating pedogenesis, especially through the biotic acceleration of weathering and the addition of ...