and you may need to create a new Wiley Online Library account. Recently, the mechanistic basis of classic succession theory has been advanced by studies of plant and microbial interactions, functional traits, and retrogressive stages of ecosystem development. Please check your email for instructions on resetting your password. There has been considerable interest in patterns of plant traits during succession (Douma, de Haan, Aerts, Witte, & van Bodegom, 2012), with a number of recent studies in grasslands (e.g. While past studies have explored belowground microbial communities, they have typically focused on a single taxonomic group (most often the bacteria), but advances in metagenomics now allow for broader integration across taxonomic groups, including assessment of symbiotic organisms and linkages between plant and microbial communities and plant–soil feedbacks. Changes abiotic conditions due to nutrient deposition or climate change affect environmental filtering and the strength and direction of plant–soil feedbacks, with potential consequences for community development (e.g. Together, they add to a growing body of evidence showing how functional trait change can help understand community dynamics during ecosystem development. Secondary succession occurs when the primary ecosystem gets destroyed. primary versus secondary succession), and across broad spatial and temporal scales (Walker, 2011; Walker & Wardle, 2014). Fauna Community Convergence During Decomposition of Deadwood Across Tree Species and Forests. An outline of the classification is given below: (1). By studying a gradient of island size caused by habitat fragmentation created by a dammed river in China, Liu et al. Two new studies extend this for grasslands and tropical forests. This special issue has three papers that explore the role of dispersal limitation and habitat size on successional processes. Given our relatively limited understanding of microbial community dynamics during succession, and the rapid advances being made in metagenomic analysis, it seems likely that this topic will continue to yield important novel insight into the mechanistic underpinnings of ecological succession in the coming decade. Successional trajectories of abundance‐weighted foliar nutrients differed markedly between native and exotic species, suggesting that the success of exotic invasive species is influenced by selection of plant traits during succession. A is correct. These findings were supported by results from field inoculation assays, in which beneficial fungi facilitated late successional plant establishment. Collectively, these three studies highlight the remarkable insight that belowground communities can bring to our understanding of ecological succession. Second, papers in this issue demonstrate that combining experimental manipulation with long‐term monitoring can provide unique insight into the specific mechanisms that drive successional patterns. Although plant and microbial communities became increasingly decoupled through time, the changes for both groups were linked to soil acidification during pedogenesis, revealing a coordinated driver of above and below ground diversity during long‐term ecosystem development. environmental factors, biotic interactions), further influencing successional trajectories (Makoto & Wilson, 2019). Special Feature: Ecological Succession in a Changing World, British Ecological Society, 42 Wharf Road, London, N1 7GS | T: +44 20 3994 8282 E: hello@britishecologicalsociety.org | Charity Registration Number: 281213. Enter your email address below and we will send you your username, If the address matches an existing account you will receive an email with instructions to retrieve your username, Themes in ecological succession, and the methods used to advance theory and knowledge in basic and applied ecology in a rapidly changing world [Colour figure can be viewed at, I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of Use, Plant‐soil feedbacks as drivers of succession: Evidence from remnant and restored tallgrass prairies, Microbial population and community dynamics on plant roots and their feedbacks on plant communities, Climate change and the past, present, and future of biotic interactions, Leaf traits in dominant species from different secondary successional stages of deciduous forest on the Loess Plateau of northern China, Testing conceptual models of early plant succession across a disturbance gradient, Integrating succession and community assembly perspectives, Contingent factors explain average divergence in functional composition over 88 years of old field succession, Mechanisms of succession in natural communities and their role in community stability and organization, Long‐term changes in soil microbial communities during primary succession, The movement ecology and dynamics of plant communities in fragmented landscapes, Evolving perspectives on monopolization and priority effects, Contrasting patterns of leaf trait variation among and within species during tropical dry forest succession in Costa Rica, Vive la difference: Plant functional diversity matters to ecosystem processes, Vesicular–arbuscular mycorrhizal infection of, Disentangling mechanisms that mediate the balance between stochastic and deterministic processes in microbial succession, Succession‐induced trait shifts across a wide range of NW European ecosystems are driven by light and modulated by initial abiotic conditions, Species pools and differential performance generate variation in leaf nutrients between native and exotic species in succession, History of ecological sciences, part 54: Succession, community, and continuum, Climate isn't everything: Competitive interactions and variation by life stage will also affect range shifts in a warming world, Understorey succession after burial by tephra from Mount St. Helens, Drivers of secondary succession rates across temperate latitudes of the Eastern USA: Climate, soils, and species pools, Historical contingency in community assembly: Integrating niches, species pools, and priority effects, Strong succession in arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities, Plant functional markers capture ecosystem properties during secondary succession. Together these studies highlight the importance of deterministic mechanisms such as disturbance intensity, site conditions, competition, and demographic trade‐offs on successional trajectories. between plant and microbial communities; Bauer, Mack, & Bever, 2015). (2019) examined patterns of α‐diversity for archaea, bacteria, and fungi over 2 million years of ecosystem development along the Jurien Bay chronosequence of coastal dunes in Western Australia. Forest Understorey Vegetation: Colonization and the Availability and Heterogeneity of Resources, British Ecological Society, 42 Wharf Road, London, N1 7GS, https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8973.1. Primary And Secondary Succession. Comparative Plant Succession among Terrestrial Biomes of the World. In tropical forests of Singapore, Lai, Chong, Yee, Tan, and van Breugel (in revision)11 Accepted articles published in Journal of Ecology but appearing after the Special Issue. The time scale can be decades (for example, after a wildfire), or even millions of years after a mass extinction.. primary versus secondary successional sites) provides context for how disturbances and their severity influence community trajectories and recovery rates. The Dynamics of Soil Microbial Communities on Different Timescales: A Review. Number of times cited according to CrossRef: Fire, flood and monodominance of Tabebuia aurea in Pantanal. For eg., a climax community gets destroyed by fire. Division of Biology, University of Washington, Bothell, Washington, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Republic of Panama. It gets recolonized after the destruction. Despite succession being a foundation of ecological theory, few studies have sought broad generalizations across a range of successional sites. space availability, increased biotic interactions). Secondary ecological succession C. Cyclical ecological succession. (2019) synthesized three 36‐year datasets to examine succession patterns across a disturbance gradient ranging from primary to secondary succession. Dalling, in Encyclopedia of Ecology, 2008. Attractiveness of Cattle Dung to Coprophilous Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea and Sphaeridiinae) and Their Segregation During the Initial Stages of the Heterotrophic Succession on a Pasture in Southeast Michigan. Re-greening of agrosystems in the Burkina Faso Sahel: greater drought resilience but falling woody plant diversity. Originating from an Organized Symposium in August 2017 at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland, Oregon, this special issue brings together a series of articles that highlight how contemporary studies are bringing novel perspectives to our understanding of ecological succession. Effects of forest windstorm disturbance on invasive plants in protected areas of southern Illinois, USA. When and where does dispersal limitation matter in primary succession? Community efficiency during succession: a test of MacArthur's minimization principle in phytoplankton communities. Understanding how patterns of succession differ across a disturbance severity gradient (e.g. The ecological succession is classified into different types based on different criterions such as the origin of succession, cause, community composition and nature of substratum. Sites suffering high and low‐severity disturbance recovered more slowly, but in response to different mechanisms (seed/abiotic conditions versus light limitation, respectively). (2019) suggest that it is possible to make broad generalizations about disturbance severity and succession, although confirmation of driving mechanisms requires further research. Pioneers in Secondary Succession. The study of ecological succession generally focuses on … First, the papers in this special issue highlight the need for large temporal and spatial scales to best account for inherent variation across these scales, which provides the basis for understanding the extent to which successional dynamics can be generalized. Bauer et al., 2015; Gao et al., 2018; Johnson, Zak, Tilman, & Pfleger, 1991), which might influence successional patterns through positive plant–soil feedbacks (Bever, Platt, & Morton, 2012). Studies of ecological succession can therefore help understand how ecosystems respond to global change. By explicitly comparing primary and secondary succession across a broad range of ecosystems in the published literature, Prach and Walker (2019) report that primary successional sites more often increased in species richness, had more divergent trajectories, and suffered less impact of alien species compared to secondary succession sites. The community composition of mycorrhizal fungi shifts during succession (e.g. Bringing Community Ecology to Bear on the Issue of Antimicrobial Resistance. Bauer et al., 2015; Cutler, Chaput, & van der Gast, 2014), while functional trait measurements (e.g. Mycorrhizal symbioses vary predictably as soil nutrient availability changes from nitrogen to phosphorus limitation, involving a shift from plant communities dominated by arbuscular mycorrhizal plants on relatively young soils, to an increasing abundance of ectomycorrhizal and ericoid mycorrhizal plants on older soils (Lambers, Raven, Shaver, & Smith, 2008; Zemunik, Turner, Lambers, & Laliberté, 2015).