Question

What is ecological succession? How is hydrarch succession different from xerarch succession?

Answer 1

Ecological succession is a sequence of seres from barren land to the climax. In ecological terms, the developmental stages of a community are known as seral stages and the final stage as the climax. The initial community of the area, which is replaced in time by a sequence of succeeding communities until the climax is reached, is called pioneer stage or pioneer community. The entire series of communities that is a characteristic of given site is called a sere.

Xerosere or Xerarch succession and Hydrosere or Hydrarch succession are two main biological successions. These differ in following characteristics:

1. Xerosere originate on bare rock surfaces, where the original substratum is deficient of water and lacks any organic matter whereas Hydrosere is a succession in which a pond, and its community are converted into a land community.

2. In xerosere, pioneer stage is of lichens whereas in hydrosere, pioneer stage is of phytoplanktons.