The Succession
Ecological succession is the changing of an ecosystem over a long period of time. There are three stages of ecological succession; Primary succession, Secondary succession, and the Climax community. Primary succession is when there is an entirely uninhabited environment. Secondary Succession is when this environment is disturbed, allowing life to form and develop. Over a period of time the inhabitants of this environment adapt and change to their environment, leading to evolution. As time goes on, a population will develop and increase until it reaches the climax community. The climax community is when the population in an ecosystem stabilizes, allowing the ecosystem to thrive. A successional change in the Arctic Tundra would possibly be a great increase in temperatures. An increase in temperatures such as this would potentially kill native plant life, in turn allowing more abundant, new plant life to form. This could impact the population of Arctic Foxes positively, because of more food, they are able to survive longer and lead to a great increase of the population of Arctic Foxes. A change such as this would mark the end of primary succession. A secondary change could be a sudden introduction of a new predator, for example, a wolf. The wolf would kill the population of Arctic Foxes that increased from the first change, and would possibly cause it to disappear or go extinct. This would cause the wolf population to decrease and then plane out, due to a loss of an animal to make prey. This last change would be the climax community.