2.5.6—Secondary success HLion

Secondary succession follows disturbance when soil, nutrients or living legacies remain.

Abandoned fields and many burned forests can retain seed banks, roots, microbes and nearby colonists, so recovery need not rebuild soil from bare rock. Rate depends on disturbance severity.

After a grassland fire, surviving soil and roots allow regrowth much sooner than a newly formed volcanic surface.

Measure surviving soil, organic matter, roots or seed bank; fire alone does not decide the category.

Secondary does not mean ‘fast in every case’; severe disturbance can remove most legacies.