14.7.2 Secondary Succession Flashcards
Secondary Succession
• Primary succession occurs when communities are eradicated, leaving barren rock.
• In secondary succession, a disturbance leaves behind intact soil.
• Examples of secondary succession include:
· Fields to small shrubs to weed trees to forests
· Lakes to marshes to wet fields to shrubs to trees to forests
secondary succession
- Review: Community-level disturbances include fire, flood, glaciers, and human activity and can lead to
primary succession. - In secondary succession, an existing community is disrupted and leaves the soil intact. American settlers eliminated nearly all of the country’s virgin stands of deciduous forests.
note
- Each stage on the left inhibits the preexisting vegetation. The secondary succession goes from field to small shrubs to weed trees to forest.
- Another example of secondary succession involves the
gradual change from an oligotrophic to a eutrophic lake.
An oligotrophic lake is a nutrient-poor, clear, deep lake with little phytoplankton. Over time, oligotrophic lakes fill in with sediments and nutrients, forming eutrophic lakes. When the lake becomes shallow enough, standing vegetation will grow; the region is now classified as a marsh or swamp. When the marshes fill in further, they give rise to wet fields and follow the sequence of fields to forest.
What is a climax community?
- a community that will remain stable until the next disturbance
Which of the following is likely to first move into an area undergoing secondary succession?
- weeds
True or false?
Secondary succession always leads to a climax forest community.
- false
True or false?
All major disruptive events such as fire and flood cause primary succession.
- false
In terms of lakes, the successional sequence is __________ to __________ to __________ to __________.
- oligotrophic lakes; eutrophic lakes; marsh; wet fields
Which of the following is a secondary disturbance?
- The American settlers eliminated nearly all the virgin stands, cutting the forest down to the soil.