Ecological succession

After in a forest fire: ecology changes after 1 year (left) and after 2 years (right)

Ecological succession, is the process by which a specific ecology has more or less orderly and predictably changed after a disturbance like a fire. In long-term studies, there is a species succession process in the way forests develop.

Notable ecologists

Several scientists are prominent in the history of this process theory:

• Adolphe Dureau de la Malle was the first to use of the word succession. He described the process of re-growth after trees in a forest had been cut down.
• Henry David Thoreau described succession in an Oak-Pine forest in "The Succession of Forest Trees" in 1859.
• Henry Chandler Cowles developed a formal concept of plant growth succession. His work was based on studies of sand dunes in Danish by Eugen Warming. Cowles proposed the term sere. This is a repeatable sequence of changes which are identified in specific environmental circumstances.
• Frederic Clements proposed a theory that seres were highly predictable.
• Henry Gleason proposed that chance factors were very important, even in highly predicable sere settings.

Other websites

• ScienceAid.co.uk, "Ecosystems", Succession