The Use of Vital Attributes to Predict Successional Changes in Plant Communities Subject to Recurrent Disturbances

Abstract

The established view of ecological succession is that, following a disturbance, several assemblages of species progressively occupy a site, each giving way to its successor until a community finally develops which is able to reproduce itself indefinitely. Implicit in this view is the assumption that each suite of species modifies the site conditions so that they become less suitable for its own persistence and more suitable for its successor, and the assumption that only the final community is at equilibrium with the prevailing environment. These ideas owe their origin largely to Clements (1916, 1936) who viewed the community as a kind of super-organism, and succession as a form of ontogeny. They are entrenched to various degrees in the ecological literature and have been supported by many authors (see, for example, Golley 1977).