Causes of Succession

Ecological succession has run in parallel with organic evolution ever since life first originated, and it is driven by three distinct classes of cause, acting one after another rather than all at once. Initiating causes are the abiotic factors (light, temperature, water, fire, soil erosion, wind) and biotic factors (competition among organisms) that either create a barren area from scratch or destroy an existing community — depending on which of these happens, the succession that follows is classed as primary or secondary respectively. Continuing causes are the ongoing processes — migration, aggregation, competition, reaction — that keep reshaping the plant community and the underlying soil once colonisation is under way. Stabilizing causes are what eventually lock the plant community int …