ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION

✅ The gradual and fairly predictable change in the species composition of a given area is called ecological succession. 

✅ The first plant to colonize an area is called the pioneer community. 

✅The final stage of succession is called the climax community. 

✅A climax community is the final stage of succession, remaining relatively unchanged until destroyed by an event such as fire or human interference. This is a community that is in near equilibrium with the environment. 

✅The entire sequence of communities that successively change in a given area are called sere.

▪️Primary succession: 

✅ Primary succession takes place an over where no community has existed previously.  

🔸E.g. rock outcrops, newly formed deltas and sand dunes, emerging volcano islands and lava flows, glacial moraines etc. 

✅ In primary succession on a terrestrial site, the new site is first colonized by a few hardy pioneer species that are often microbes, lichens and mosses. 

▪️Secondary succession:

 

✅Secondary succession begins in areas where natural biotic communities have been  

destroyed such as in abandoned farm lands, burned or cut forests, lands that have  

been flooded.  

✅ Since some soil or sediment is present, succession is faster than primary succession.

▪️Note: At any time during primary or secondary succession, natural or human induced disturbances (fire, deforestation, etc.), can convert a particular seral stage of succession to an earlier stage. Also, such disturbances create new conditions that encourage some species and discourage or eliminate other species.

#revision_notes 

#prelims 

#environment