Abstract
The study of ecological succession to determine how plant communities re-assemble after a natural or anthropogenic disturbance has always been an important topic in ecology. The understanding of these processes forms part of the new theories of community assembly and species coexistence, and is attracting attention in a context of expanding human impacts. Specifically, new successional studies provide answers to different mechanisms of community assemblage, and aim to define the importance of deterministic or stochastic processes in the succession dynamic. Biotic limits, which depend directly on biodiversity (i.e., species competition), and abiotic filtering, which depends on the environment, become particularly important when they are exceeded, making the succession process more complicated to reach the previous disturbance stage. Plant functional traits (PFTs) are used in secondary succession studies to establish differences between abandonment stages or to compare types of vegetation or flora, and are more closely related to the functioning of plant communities. Dispersal limitation is a PFT considered an important process from a stochastic point of view because it is related to the establishing of plants. Related to it the soil seed bank plays an important role in secondary succession because it is essential for ecosystem functioning. Soil compounds and microbial community are important variables to take into account when studying any succession stage. Chronosequence is the best way to study the whole process at different time scales. Finally, our objective in this review is to show how past studies and new insights are being incorporated into the basis of classic succession. To further explore this subject we have chosen old-field recovery as an example of how a number of different plant communities, including annual and perennial grasslands and shrublands, play an important role in secondary succession.
Highlights
Ecological succession is a process whereby plant communities re-assemble after a natural or anthropogenic perturbation
Following Odum, ecological succession can be defined by three parameters: (i) it is an orderly process of plant community change that is directional enough to be considered predictable; (ii) it is the result of the modification of the physical context by the target plant community; and (iii) it achieves a stable ecosystem that maintains a maximum of biomass and mutualistic relationships between the organisms through the available unit of energy flux [1,2,3]
This functional trait serves to evaluate how plants become established in a secondary succession (Table 2), and is considered an important process from a stochastic point of view
Summary
Ecological succession is a process whereby plant communities re-assemble after a natural or anthropogenic perturbation. Three main drivers have been described as being responsible for land abandonment [17]: (i) ecological drivers: certain environmental features of the land such as elevation, geological substrate, slope, soil depth, erosion and global change were important factors in the abandonment [18,19]; (ii) socioeconomic drivers, new economic opportunities, migration, rural depopulation, market incentives, etc., including the European Union‘s Common Agricultural Policies (CAP) [19,20,21]; and (iii) mismanagement, with practices such as over-exploitation and desertification [18,20]. Plants 2021, 10, 990 between certain groups of traits and the relative competitive abilities of species change depending on a range of environmental conditions These particular traits are different depending on whether the succession is in a late or early stage. The nutrients vs light competition hypothesis better accounts for the dominance of woody plants, they compete better in N rich fields displacing herbs Both ideas predict the vegetation composition and successional dynamic through simple interspecific interactions [44].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
