Deglaciation: Colonisation & succession
Автор: Nature's Work
Загружено: 2024-02-21
Просмотров: 336
We live in a time of great change regarding world climate. The retreat of the world’s ice caps and glaciers continues, exposing new surfaces once covered beneath vast frozen rivers of ice. With the unearthing of these rocky surfaces, comprising of glacially scoured bedrock, boulders and gravels, comes an opportunity for new life to colonise these virgin habitats.
With only a meagre source of minerals and nutrients, pioneer lichens and mosses are able to establish and grow in the exposed and barren landscape with their spores being blown in by the wind. Shortly after specialist plants take root and begin the establishment of the early pioneering community of plants. In such extreme conditions growth is slow, but conditions steadily improve and pockets of soil develop as dead plant materials are broken down, decompose and become available for new plants to utilise the nutrients.
This transformation continues over time with new additions to the plant community. With each addition the conditions in the soil develop and the habitat gradually changes. Each alteration to the environment changes the conditions enough to make it more favourable for different species that take advantage of this new opportunity and the diversity of species rises. Over time this process of development stabilises and the sequence of plant communities comes to rest with characteristic plants that define the ecosystem.
What has been described above is the process known as ‘primary succession’. This is a large-scale pattern and follows the changes in plant communities and the development of soil which occur over time. The final plant community being recognised as the typical vegetation of the area which is largely defined by climate. We notice this as we observe the changes from the milder valleys to the tops of the higher mountains where distinct bands of vegetation occur. Each of these bands of vegetation are characteristic of the altitudinal zones and reflect the natural vegetation of that climate.
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