Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Facilitation Model. Based on the assumption that only particular species with qualities ideal for "early succession" can colonize the newly exposed landforms after an ecological disturbance. These "colonizing" qualities include: highly effective methods of dispersal, the ability to remain dormant for long periods of time, and a rapid growth rate.
Succession theory was developed primarily by botanists. The study of succession applied to whole ecosystems initiated in the writings of Ramon Margalef, while Eugene Odum's publication of The Strategy of Ecosystem Development is considered its formal starting point. [35] Animal life also exhibits changes with changing communities.
Early ecological succession theory maintained that the directional shifts from one stage of succession to the next were induced by the plants themselves. [1] In this sense, succession theory implicitly recognized priority effects; the prior arrival of certain species had important impacts on future community composition.
Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment. [15] It is the study of how the population sizes of species living together in groups change over time and space, and was one of the first aspects of ecology to be studied and modelled mathematically.
Ecological systems theory is a broad term used to capture the theoretical contributions of developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner. [1] Bronfenbrenner developed the foundations of the theory throughout his career, [2] published a major statement of the theory in American Psychologist, [3] articulated it in a series of propositions and hypotheses in his most cited book, The Ecology of ...
The cyclic model of succession was proposed in 1947 by British ecologist Alexander Watt.In a seminal paper on vegetation patterns in grass, heath, and bog communities, [4] Watt describes the plant community is a regenerating entity consisting of a "space-time mosaic" of species, whose cyclic behavior can be characterized by patch dynamics.
One example of primary succession takes place after a volcano has erupted. The lava flows into the ocean and hardens into new land. The resulting barren land is first colonized by pioneer organisms, like algae, which pave the way for later, less hardy plants, such as hardwood trees, by facilitating pedogenesis, especially through the biotic acceleration of weathering and the addition of ...
A structural diagram of the open ocean plankton ecosystem model of Fasham, Ducklow & McKelvie (1990). [1]An ecosystem model is an abstract, usually mathematical, representation of an ecological system (ranging in scale from an individual population, to an ecological community, or even an entire biome), which is studied to better understand the real system.