Is successional research nearing its climax? New approaches for understanding dynamic communities

Abstract

Summary1. Succession has been a focus of extensive ecological study for well over a century. Despite this sustained interest, succession remains a central theme in ecological research and is positioned to continue that prominence in this era of expanding human impacts. Community ecology is currently experiencing a profound conceptual expansion, providing many new insights into succession. 2. Here we present an existing conceptual framework of successional drivers that includes variation in site conditions, species availability and species performance, and expand it to include both evolutionary and geographic sources of variation. This framework is useful because it specifies relationships among individual drivers and is causally complete. While we generally think about succession as a within-site process, the inclusion of phylogenetic and geographic processes allows integration across broader scales. 3. We use the conceptual framework to highlight several opportunities for successional research that have developed within community ecology, but have not been fully integrated into succession work. These ideas represent not only individual drivers of succession, but also potential synergistic processes operating through interaction with other drivers. The complexity of drivers in succession strongly argues for the need to move away from single factor studies towards combinatorial studies that incorporate multiple drivers. 4. Utilizing a trait-based approach should allow researchers to address successional drivers at multiple ecological scales and lead to new insights that integrate ecological systems. Our ability to do this will depend on the availability of equivalent data across multiple systems, suggesting the need for more standardization in successional studies. 5. Addressing the research opportunities highlighted here will not only produce insights into successional systems, but also expand our understanding of fundamental questions in community ecology as a whole. Of particular importance is the ability to address broader scale questions that go beyond the idiosyncrasies of individual sites and systems. Understanding the dynamics of successional systems will remain critical to understanding, managing and predicting anthropogenic impacts on natural systems.

Scale sensitivity of the relationship between alpha and gamma diversity along an alpine elevation gradient in central Nepal

“…Ecological succession thus continues to remain a central theme in ecological research in this era of ever-expanding human impacts and rapid landscape changes (Pickett et al 2009;Meiners et al 2015). There have been complex interactions between people and natural landscapes across the globe since the origin of humans (Luken 1990).…”

Assessment of Land Use-Cover Changes and Successional Stages of Vegetation in the Natural Protected Area Altas Cumbres, Northeastern Mexico, Using Landsat Satellite Imagery

“…Despite the fact that the successional process is not always unidirectional and can follow different routes [67,69] and operate according to different causes [70], for this study we considered the secondary succession only as the process of recovery of vegetation [66], without taking into account the route or factors that caused it. Therefore, for this purpose, those areas with modified land cover (for example crops and urban areas), without vegetation (bare soil areas), or characterized by fast-grow pioneer species (grasslands, sparse or dense herbaceous vegetation, among others) were selected as disturbance areas or primary successional stages.…”

Species richness and phylogenetic structure in plant communities: 20 years of succession

“…4 and 5 revealed also no striking differences between the three treatments. Meiners et al (2015) suggested that the phylogenetic structure of a community develops from a random or clustered pattern at the start of succession to an overdispersed structure with increasing competition during succession. Similarly, Dinnage (2009) showed that disturbance lead to clustered species communities in old field systems.…”

“…At the beginning of a succession, the most important process structuring communities is the arrival of propagules from outside as well as the germination from the soil seed bank. Therefore, both random processes (arrival) as well as environmental filtering (conditions for germination) are expected to dominate community assembly during the early stages of succession (Cavender-Bares et al, 2009;Meiners et al, 2015). As succession proceeds, interspecific competition is expected to increase in importance (e.g.…”

“…Based on several assumptions, the phylodiversity of species assemblages also provides insights into processes of community assembly (Graham et al, 2009;Verdú et al, 2012;Meiners et al, 2015). Assuming that phylogenetic relatedness is a proxy for ecological relatedness (but see Gerhold et al, 2015;Lososová et al, 2016), the comparison of the phylodiversity of real assemblages with randomly constructed assemblages allows the relative importance of ecological processes to be inferred.…”