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22 - Vegetation dynamics

from Part VI - Terrestrial Plant Ecology

Gordon B. Bonan
Gordon B. Bonan
Affiliation:
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
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Summary

Chapter summary

Ecosystems are not static entities, but rather are in a state of continual change. Disturbances that create clearings initiate vegetation dynamics that vary according to life history patterns and competition among plants for light, water, and nutrients. Some species grow fast and are short lived. These plants are ephemeral features in the landscape, using a life history that allows them to rapidly colonize and dominate recently disturbed patches. These denuded patches occur through processes endogenous to the landscape such as the death and uprooting of a large tree that creates a gap in the canopy or through exogenous disturbances such as the eruption of volcanoes, forest fires, and hurricanes. Over time, these early dominants give way to slower growing, longer lived species. The rise and fall of taxa is part of the natural life cycle of communities and ecosystems, a process ecologists call succession. It creates pattern to the arrangement of vegetation across the landscape related to disturbance history. The prevailing scientific view emphasizes succession as a population process. It is a result of the different physiology, morphology, and life history of species operating in a gradient of environmental change. The differential growth, survival, and colonizing ability of species adapted to the various environmental conditions encountered during community development create shifting patterns of dominance. Individual species colonize where conditions are favorable, die out of the community when the environment is no longer favorable, and grow in company with other species with similar environmental requirements.

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Ecological Climatology
Concepts and Applications
 , pp. 326 - 346
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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  • Vegetation dynamics
  • Gordon B. Bonan, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
  • Book: Ecological Climatology
  • Online publication: 05 April 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805530.023
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  • Vegetation dynamics
  • Gordon B. Bonan, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
  • Book: Ecological Climatology
  • Online publication: 05 April 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805530.023
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  • Vegetation dynamics
  • Gordon B. Bonan, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
  • Book: Ecological Climatology
  • Online publication: 05 April 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805530.023
Available formats
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