Changes in a Community
A community is always dynamic. Environmental conditions influence the living organisms present in a community and the organisms in turn also influence their habitat. Thus, the habitat and the components of community keep on changing.
The process of change: in the habitat accompanied by the change of vegetation one after the other is called plant succession.
The basic concept of plant succession is that the interaction between the habitat and the plants colonising the habitat result in some changes in the climate, Change in the climate may not be suitable for the existing plant community.
Thus, new types of plants that can survive in the changed erjvirqnment invade that habitat and rcplacc the old ones. The process of replacement of one community by the other continues till climax or stable community is reached.
Clements (1916) defined succes- sion as a natural process by which” the same locality becomes successively colonised by different groups of plants. Knight (1965) defined succession as orderly and progressive replacement of one community by another:
From the above definition, it is clear that a plant community is not static. It involves a regular, orderly, progressive and predictable change, ultimately, leading to the replacement of one community by another. Odum (1971) considers succession as development of a community.
