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Secondary succession is the ecological succession that occurs after the initial succession has been disrupted and some plants and animals still exist. It is usually faster than primary succession as soil is already present, and seeds , roots , and the underground vegetative organs of plants may still survive in the soil.
Secondary succession is strongly influenced by pre-disturbance conditions such as soil development, seed banks, remaining organic matter, and residual living organisms. [1] Because of residual fertility and preexisting organisms, community change in early stages of secondary succession can be relatively rapid.
Secondary succession is much faster than primary because the soil is already formed, although deteriorated and needing restoration as well. However, when a significant destruction of the vegetation takes place (of natural origin such as an avalanche or human origin), the disturbance undergone by the ecosystem is too important.
Pioneer species play an important role in creating soil in primary succession, and stabilizing soil and nutrients in secondary succession. [2] For humans, because pioneer species quickly occupy disrupted spaces they are sometimes treated as weeds or nuisance wildlife, such as the common dandelion or stinging nettle.
Secondary succession occurs where a disturbance has taken place but soil remains and is able to support plant growth. It does not take nearly as long for plant regeneration to occur because of the soil substrate already present. Secondary succession is much more common than primary succession in the tropics.
Soil seed banks are a crucial part of the rapid re-vegetation of sites disturbed by wildfire, catastrophic weather, agricultural operations, and timber harvesting, a natural process known as secondary succession. Soil seed banks are often dominated by pioneer species, those species that are specially adapted to return to an environment first ...
Many studies have been conducted on old field succession, the process by which fields slowly grow back into forests over many years. While there are two types of succession, primary and secondary, secondary succession is what we think about when considering old fields. These processes may be cyclic or seral depending on the system dynamics and ...
For example, we can examine succession in the Loess Plateau in China. In the graph on page 995 of the paper "Plant Traits and Soil Chemical Variables During a Secondary Vegetation Succession in Abandoned Fields on the Loess Plateau" by Wang (2002), we can see the initial dominance of the Artemisia scoparia, the pioneer species.