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Pioneer flora. Some lichens grow on rocks without soil, so may be among the first of life forms, and break down the rocks into soil for plants. Since some uninhabited land may have thin, poor quality soils with few nutrients, pioneer species are often hardy plants with adaptations such as long roots, root nodes containing nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and leaves that employ transpiration.
Pioneer organism. A pioneer organism, also called a disaster taxon, is an organism that colonizes a previously empty area first, or one that repopulates vacant niches after a natural disaster, mass extinction or any other catastrophic event that wipes out most life of the prior biome. [1] A group of such organisms capable of continued ...
Ecological succession is the process of change in the species that make up an ecological community over time. The process of succession occurs either after the initial colonization of a newly created habitat, or after a disturbance substantially alters a pre-existing habitat. [1] Succession that begins in new habitats, uninfluenced by pre ...
Primary succession is the beginning step of ecological succession after an extreme disturbance, which usually occurs in an environment devoid of vegetation and other organisms. These environments are typically lacking in soil, as disturbances like lava flow or retreating glaciers scour the environment clear of nutrients.
Climax species. An image of ecological succession, starting with pioneer species and ending with an old-growth forest that is dominated by climax species, which is denoted by VIII. Climax species, also called late seral, late-successional, K-selected or equilibrium species, are plant species that can germinate and grow with limited resources; e ...
Connell–Slatyer model of ecological succession. Ecological succession can be understood as a process of changing species composition within a community due to an ecological disturbance, and varies largely according to the initial disturbance prompting the succession. [1] Joseph Connell and Ralph Slatyer further developed the understanding of ...
Secondary succession is the secondary ecological succession of a plant's life. As opposed to the first, primary succession, secondary succession is a process started by an event (e.g. forest fire, harvesting, hurricane, etc.) that reduces an already established ecosystem (e.g. a forest or a wheat field) to a smaller population of species, and as such secondary succession occurs on preexisting ...
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations.