¿Qué es la Sucesión Ecológica?

La sucesión es una serie de cambios progresivos en la composición de una comunidad ecológica a lo largo del tiempo. La sucesión es direccional. Por lo general, se pueden predecir con precisión las diferentes etapas en una sucesión de hábitat particular.

Las sucesiones ecológicas son los cambios notables que ocurren en una configuración ecológica a lo largo del tiempo. Estos cambios suelen ser predecibles y tienen lugar de manera ordenada. Un excelente ejemplo es cómo la vegetación crece más y más con el tiempo. La alteración drástica de las condiciones ambientales también puede provocar los cambios. En una configuración ecológica, la composición y estructura de las especies cambia con el tiempo a medida que algunas especies se vuelven más adaptables mientras que otras desaparecen gradualmente. Otras especies en la comunidad pueden volverse más abundantes mientras que otras se vuelven menos abundantes, y algunas incluso desaparecen por completo.

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Original species may be able to survive in the original optimal conditions but as the environment undergo changes, the initially dominant species may fail, and new ones may become most powerful. New species may also invade adjacent ecological setting thereby alters the original ecosystems after some time duration. Hence, the changes realized in an ecological setup over time are termed as ecological succession. Some of the influencing environmental factors for ecological succession include windstorms, landslides, agriculture, and wildfires.

Wikipedia defines Ecological Succession as,

Ecological succession is the process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. The time scale can be decades (for example, after a wildfire), or even millions of years after a mass extinction. It is a phenomenon or process by which an ecological community undergoes more or less orderly and predictable changes following a disturbance or the initial colonization of a new habitat. Succession may be initiated either by formation of new, unoccupied habitat, such as from a lava flow or a severe landslide, or by some form of disturbance of a community, such as from a fire, severe windthrow, or logging.

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Types of Ecological Succession

Succession is largely grouped into two, including primary and secondary ecological succession. The categorization is determined by the initiating factors which may either include the disturbance of an already existing habitat or the formation of a new habitat. All the changes and developments have to undergo a gradual process.

  1. Primary Succession

It is the type of succession initiated in a completely new habitat that has never been originally colonized. It occurs when a series of species enters into a new habitat that has never supported any plant or animal community. When the new community enters such a habitat, significant changes begin to take place and subsequently alter the ecological setting completely. The newly colonized environment is considered to be in its primary stage as it gradually undergoes fresh chemical and physical changes.

For instance, when granite is removed in a quarry, the rock face left behind is changed and becomes a new habitat. The same applies for new habitat formation after volcanic eruptions, sand dunes or landslides. In primary succession, initiating species like algae, lichen, and fungi and other abiotic elements like water and wind begin to return the habitat to its normal state. The initiating plants are then later dominated and replaced by better-adapted plants.

  1. Secondary Succession

Secondary succession is the reciprocal of primary succession. It involves the ecological changes that occur in a previously colonized, but destroyed or upset habitat. This type of succession is more frequent compared to primary succession since most of the contemporary human activities such as deforestation, agriculture, land clearance, and pollution often destroys environments after which a new community moves in.

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Natural disasters such as floods, winds and wildfires may also alter or destroy environments, giving rise to a new community. When the new community moves in, the processes of reproducing, growing, and interaction affects the environment and slowly change it.

Endpoint of Succession

Ecosystems, because of the internal dynamics and external forces, are in a constant process of change and re-structuring. Ecological succession is a predictable process in which a community goes through the same series of stages. There is a concept in ecological succession called the “climax” community. The climax community represents a stable, unchanging final state of the successional sequence. Climax community is the final stage. Succession will not go any further than the climax community.

La sucesión, hoy, puede seguir diferentes caminos dependiendo de las especificidades de la situación. Cualquier ecosistema, sin importar cuán intrínsecamente estable y persistente, podría estar sujeto a fuerzas disruptivas externas masivas que podrían restablecer y reactivar el proceso de sucesión. Los ecosistemas pueden experimentar perturbaciones que impiden que una comunidad alcance un estado de equilibrio. 

Mientras estos eventos tengan que ocurrir, no es absolutamente exacto decir que la sucesión se ha detenido. Las condiciones climáticas y otros aspectos fundamentales del cambio de un ecosistema están obligados a cambiar durante largos períodos de tiempo. Estos cambios de escala de tiempo no son observables en nuestro tiempo “ecológico” pero su existencia fundamental no puede ser cociente. Ningún ecosistema puede existir sin cambios o sin cambios en una escala de tiempo geológico.

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