Successional theories

Succession is a fundamental concept in ecology because it indicates how species populations, communities, and ecosystems change over time on new substrate or after a disturbance. A mechanistic understanding of succession is needed to predict how ecosystems will respond to land‐use change and to design effective ecosystem restoration strategies. Yet, despite a century of conceptual advances a comprehensive successional theory is lacking. Here we provide an overview of 19 successional theories (‘models’) and their key points, group them based on conceptual similarity, explain conceptual development in successional ideas and provide suggestions how to move forward.

• Publication year

  2023

• Venue

  Biological Reviews of The Cambridge Philosophical Society

• Publication date

  2023-07-16

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1111/brv.12995PMID 37455023
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Successional shifts in tree demographic strategies in wet and dry Neotropical forests

  2023cited by this paper
• Landscape-scale forest cover drives the predictability of forest regeneration across the Neotropics

  2023cited by this paper
• Expected adult lifespan in tropical trees: Long-term matrix demography in a large plot

  2022cited by this paper
• Tertiary succession: a new concept to help vegetation restoration

  2022cited by this paper
• The role of land‐use history in driving successional pathways and its implications for the restoration of tropical forests

  2021influential reference
• Editorial: Enhancing Natural Regeneration to Restore Landscapes

  2021cited by this paper
• Woody species richness drives synergistic recovery of socio-ecological multifunctionality along early tropical dry forest regeneration

  2021cited by this paper
• Social ecological dynamics of tropical secondary forests

  2021influential reference
• Ecosystem services supply and interactions along secondary tropical dry forests succession

  2021cited by this paper
• Uniting niche differentiation and dispersal limitation predicts tropical forest succession.

  2021influential reference
• Multidimensional tropical forest recovery

  2021cited by this paper
• Functional recovery of secondary tropical forests

  2021cited by this paper
• Economic valuation of ecosystem services from secondary tropical forests: trade-offs and implications for policy making

  2020cited by this paper
• Applied nucleation facilitates tropical forest recovery: Lessons learned from a 15‐year study

  2020cited by this paper
• Possibilities and limitations of passive restoration of heavily disturbed sites

  2020cited by this paper
• Functional diversity improves tropical forest resilience: Insights from a long‐term virtual experiment

  2020cited by this paper
• Comparative Plant Succession among Terrestrial Biomes of the World

  2020cited by this paper
• Dispersal and recruitment limitations in secondary forests

  2020cited by this paper
• Detecting successional changes in tropical forest structure using GatorEye drone‐borne lidar

  2020cited by this paper
• Which landscape and abiotic site factors influence vegetation succession across seres at a country scale?

  2020cited by this paper
• Putting the pieces together: Integration for forest landscape restoration implementation

  2019cited by this paper
• Ecological succession in a changing world

  2019cited by this paper
• Succession

  2019influential reference
• Wet and dry tropical forests show opposite successional pathways in wood density but converge over time

  2019cited by this paper
• Quantifying Changes on Forest Succession in a Dry Tropical Forest Using Angular-Hyperspectral Remote Sensing

  2018cited by this paper
• A global method for calculating plant CSR ecological strategies applied across biomes world‐wide

  2017cited by this paper
• Multiple successional pathways in human‐modified tropical landscapes: new insights from forest succession, forest fragmentation and landscape ecology research

  2017cited by this paper
• Restoring tropical forests from the bottom up

  2017influential reference
• The integration of empirical, remote sensing and modelling approaches enhances insight in the role of biodiversity in climate change mitigation by tropical forests

  2017cited by this paper
• Reconstructing land use history from Landsat time-series: Case study of a swidden agriculture system in Brazil

  2016cited by this paper
• Carbon sequestration potential of second-growth forest regeneration in the Latin American tropics

  2016cited by this paper
• A succession of theories: purging redundancy from disturbance theory

  2016cited by this paper
• An Integrative Approach to Successional Dynamics: Heterogeneity in dynamic systems

  2015influential reference
• Successional dynamics in Neotropical forests are as uncertain as they are predictable

  2015cited by this paper
• Forest Succession Models

  2015influential reference
• Is successional research nearing its climax? New approaches for understanding dynamic communities

  2015influential reference
• Whose conservation?

  2014influential reference
• Plant succession as an integrator of contrasting ecological time scales.

  2014influential reference
• Vegetation succession in restoration of disturbed sites in Central Europe: the direction of succession and species richness across 19 seres

  2014cited by this paper
• Plant–soil feedbacks: the past, the present and future challenges

  2013cited by this paper
• Aboveground biomass in mature and secondary seasonally dry tropical forests: A literature review and global synthesis

  2012cited by this paper
• The use of chronosequences in studies of ecological succession and soil development

  2010cited by this paper
• Pathways, mechanisms and predictability of vegetation change during tropical dry forest succession

  2010cited by this paper
• Characterizing forest succession with lidar data: An evaluation for the Inland Northwest, USA

  2009cited by this paper
• Ever since Clements: from succession to vegetation dynamics and understanding to intervention*

  2009cited by this paper
• Resource Strategies of Wild Plants

  2009cited by this paper
• Chance and Determinism in Tropical Forest Succession

  2008cited by this paper
• Nurse plants, tree saplings and grazing pressure: changes in facilitation along a biotic environmental gradient

  2007cited by this paper
• Linking restoration and ecological succession

  2007cited by this paper
• Positive interactions and interdependence in plant communities

  2007cited by this paper
• Leaf traits are good predictors of plant performance across 53 rain forest species.

  2006cited by this paper
• Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice

  2006cited by this paper
• Assessing the generality of global leaf trait relationships.

  2005cited by this paper
• MULTIPLE BASINS OF ATTRACTION IN A TROPICAL FOREST: EVIDENCE FOR NONEQUILIBRIUM COMMUNITY STRUCTURE

  2004cited by this paper
• Primary Succession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation

  2004influential reference
• Ecosystem Properties and Forest Decline in Contrasting Long-Term Chronosequences

  2004cited by this paper
• Tropical forest recovery: legacies of human impact and natural disturbances

  2003cited by this paper
• Predicting changes in community composition and ecosystem functioning from plant traits: revisiting the Holy Grail

  2002cited by this paper
• Plant strategies, vegetation processes, and ecosystem properties

  2002influential reference
• Neotropical secondary forest succession : changes in structural and functional characteristics

  2001cited by this paper
• Shifting mosaics in grazed woodlands driven by the alternation of plant facilitation and competition

  1999cited by this paper
• Effects of Dominant Plant Species on Soils during Succession in Nutrient-poor Ecosystems

  1998cited by this paper
• A leaf-height-seed (LHS) plant ecology strategy scheme

  1998cited by this paper
• The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital

  1997cited by this paper
• Pattern and process in neotropical secondary rain forests: the first 100 years of succession.

  1996influential reference
• Forest models defined by field measurements : Estimation, error analysis and dynamics

  1996cited by this paper
• Forest stand dynamics: updated edition.

  1996cited by this paper
• Competition and Biodiversity in Spatially Structured Habitats

  1994cited by this paper
• Plant succession : theory and prediction

  1993cited by this paper
• Primary Succession on Land

  1993influential reference
• Processes of Vegetation Change

  1990influential reference
• Forests: Elements of Silvology

  1990cited by this paper
• Changing perspectives in community dynamics: A theory of successional forces.

  1989cited by this paper
• A hierarchical consideration of causes and mechanisms of succession

  1987influential reference
• Models, mechanisms and pathways of succession

  1987cited by this paper
• Plant Succession: Life History and Competition

  1987cited by this paper
• Interactions among processes controlling successional change

  1987influential reference
• The role of remnant forest trees in tropical secondary succession

  1986cited by this paper
• Forest succession

  1985cited by this paper
• The Resource-Ratio Hypothesis of Plant Succession

  1985influential reference
• Dynamics of Wet Tropical Forests and Their Species Strategies

  1984cited by this paper
• Forest succession

  1984cited by this paper
• Successional Studies of a Rain Forest in Mexico

  1981cited by this paper
• Succession: A population process

  1980cited by this paper
• Forest development in North America following major disturbances

  1980influential reference
• The use of vital attributes to predict successional changes in plant communities subject to recurrent disturbances

  1980influential reference
• Mechanisms of Succession in Natural Communities and Their Role in Community Stability and Organization

  1977influential reference
• Spatial dynamics of a primary succession: nucleation

  1974cited by this paper
• Vegetation Dynamics

  1974cited by this paper
• Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: the gaia hypothesis

  1974cited by this paper
• Mathematical Ecology and Its Place among the Sciences. (Book Reviews: Geographical Ecology. Patterns in the Distribution of Species)

  1974cited by this paper
• Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems

  1973cited by this paper
• Succession

  1973cited by this paper
• The strategy of ecosystem development.

  1969cited by this paper
• On Certain Unifying Principles in Ecology

  1963cited by this paper
• Population Studies: Animal Ecology and Demography.

  1959cited by this paper
• Vegetation science concepts I. Initial floristic composition, a factor in old-field vegetation development with 2 figs.

  1954cited by this paper
• Pattern and process in the plant community

  1947influential reference
• The Ecological Relations of the Vegetation on the Sand Dunes of Lake Michigan. Part I.-Geographical Relations of the Dune Floras.

  1899cited by this paper
• The individualistic concept of the plant association

  year unknowninfluential reference

• Secondary succession in the Caatinga is composed of species that persist throughout all chronosequence

  2026cites this paper
• Phylogenetic diversity recovery along Atlantic Forest succession: The potential for conserving evolutionary history

  2026cites this paper
• Enhanced autosuccession after wildfire in a transitional sub-Mediterranean forest ecosystem: evidence from the Kras Plateau (Slovenia)

  2026cites this paper
• Rapid shift in plant species composition in burned pine forests with different post-fire management

  2026cites this paper
• Forest restoration thinning and burning treatments create habitat mosaics and facilitate succession of grasshopper and cricket communities (Orthoptera)

  2026cites this paper
• Extreme environments in a world of new extremes

  2026cites this paper
• From maps to mandates: Multitemporal vegetation cover analysis as a tool to evaluate environmental judicial decisions

  2026cites this paper
• Forest structure and connectivity drive the functional recovery of seed rain

  2026cites this paper
• Successional Trajectories and Niche Partitioning of Vegetation in Abandoned Agricultural Lands of a Semi‐Arid Forest

  2026cites this paper
• Quantitative Assessment of Forest Ecosystem Integrity and Authenticity Based on Vegetation in Hanma and Huzhong Reserves

  2026cites this paper
• Experimental recolonization of secondary forests by a Caribbean anole follows predictions from range expansion theory

  2026cites this paper
• Asynchronous shifts in plant ecological strategies across forest layers during succession on Hengduan mountains

  2026cites this paper
• Growth responses and phenotypic plasticity of eight environmental weed species grown from seed in deep shade

  2026influential citation
• Nitrogen homeostasis and use strategies: Implications for the success of trees with ectomycorrhizal associations in nitrogen-limited temperate forests

  2026cites this paper
• Examining the several vegetation indices values to estimate carbon stock at the mining reclamation area of PT. Adaro Indonesia, South Kalimantan

  2026cites this paper
• Restoring fire regimes through rewilding.

  2025cites this paper
• Functional recovery of tropical forests: The role of restoration methods and environmental conditions

  2025cites this paper
• Reassembly dynamics of tropical secondary succession: Evidence from Atlantic forests

  2025influential citation
• Non‐stationary forest responses to hotter droughts: a temporal perspective considering the role of past legacies

  2025cites this paper
• Understanding saltmarsh distribution and mangrove co-occurrence at tropical estuaries

  2025cites this paper
• Are leaf anatomical traits strong predictors of litter decomposability? Evidence from upper Andean tropical species along a forest successional gradient

  2025cites this paper
• Three decades of above-ground biomass dynamics in subtropical Andean forests

  2025cites this paper
• Primary saltmarsh succession on a tropical coral island in the South China Sea: Human influences initiate and accelerate the process of succession

  2025cites this paper
• Enhancing biodiversity through sowing and reduced management of grasslands on dikes and floodplains

  2025cites this paper
• Shifting community assembly mechanisms in soil eukaryotes over successional time and their implications for restoration

  2025cites this paper
• Evaluating the applicability of the growth rate hypothesis in successional tree stands: evidence from temperate forests in Northeast China

  2025cites this paper
• Green Innovation in the Steel Industry: Analyzing FINEX Technology Development through Technology Innovation Systems and Strategic Niche Management

  2025cites this paper
• Vegetation Changes in Space and Time—A Special Issue on Plant Succession and Vegetation Dynamics

  2025cites this paper
• How Do Invasive Species Influence Biotic and Abiotic Factors Drive Vegetation Success in Salt Marsh Ecosystems?

  2025cites this paper
• Plant communities converge to resource-dependent transient states during succession on old fields

  2025cites this paper
• Forest diversity and composition changed over 120 years of post-agricultural succession in Cleveland Metroparks, Ohio, USA

  2025cites this paper
• TROLL 4.0: representing water and carbon fluxes, leaf phenology, and intraspecific trait variation in a mixed-species individual-based forest dynamics model – Part 1: Model description

  2025cites this paper
• Grime's CSR theory revisited: A whole‐plant view of vascular plant functioning across contrasting environments

  2025cites this paper
• Patterns and Environmental Drivers of Soil Microbial Succession

  2025cites this paper
• The effect of agricultural management on seed rain and seed banks during regeneration in Brazil’s Cerrado-Caatinga ecotone

  2025cites this paper
• From Barren Rock to Thriving Life: How Nitrogen Fuels Microbial Carbon Fixation in Deglaciated Landscapes.

  2025cites this paper
• The Mechanisms Through Which Fire Drives Population Change in Terrestrial Biota

  2025cites this paper
• Delayed recovery of seed-dispersal interactions after deforestation.

  2025cites this paper
• Breaking down to build up: litter decomposition drives soil organic carbon accumulation in young secondary forests

  2025cites this paper
• Designing utopias: Toward Clementsian industrial climax ecology

  2025cites this paper
• Unveiling the hidden soil predators of the Andes: contrasting centipede responses to ecological factors along a successional gradient in tropical montane forests

  2025cites this paper
• Church forests as reference systems: successional pathways, regeneration dynamics, and species composition across forest types in the highlands of Ethiopia

  2025cites this paper
• Habitat-dependent mechanisms regulating the recovery of plant community composition and structure in a desert steppe ecosystem.

  2025cites this paper
• How Do the Functional Resemblance Structure and Its Component‐Dependence Change Among the Successional Stages in Degraded Karst Forests?

  2025cites this paper
• Dung beetle assemblage changes along a chronosequence in a recovering tropical dry forest

  2025cites this paper
• Assessing Atlantic Forest successional stages using remote sensing

  2025cites this paper
• Recovery of soil properties and tree diversity over 24 years after plantation establishment on lands degraded by gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon

  2025influential citation
• Trait‐Based Community Assembly in Early Tropical Forest Succession

  2025cites this paper
• Shifts and Trade‐Offs of Ecological Strategy Associated With Species Diversity and Functional Traits During Vegetation Succession Progress in Karst Ecosystem

  2025cites this paper
• The dynamics of plant communities: theory and methodology

  2025cites this paper
• Forest Attribute Dynamics in Secondary Forests: Insights for Advancing Ecological Restoration and Transformative Territorial Management in the Amazon

  2025cites this paper
• Tree species diversity increases carbon stocks in tropical montane cloud forests across successional stages

  2025cites this paper
• Functional Traits and Species Identity Drive Decomposition Along a Successional Gradient in Upper Andean Tropical Forests

  2025influential citation
• Different threshold responses in spontaneously changing postagrogenic forest and unmanaged grassland. Shifts in small mammal populations and communities triggered by an extraordinary drought

  2025cites this paper
• Primary Mid-Succession Carbon Fluxes in a Spontaneously Recovering Post-Mining Ecosystem

  2025cites this paper
• Metabolically flexible microorganisms rapidly establish glacial foreland ecosystems

  2025cites this paper
• Carbon Absorption Potential of Abandoned Rice Paddy Fields in Korea

  2025cites this paper
• Soil is alive – how does soil biota influence soil mechanical properties? A perspective review

  2025cites this paper
• Species Rarity and Topography Determine the Plant Functional Structure Along the Successional Pathway in Heterogeneous Degraded Karst Forests

  2025cites this paper
• Recuperación de la masa de mantillo con plantaciones de restauración en el bosque tropical estacionalmente seco

  2025cites this paper
• Temporal stability of forest productivity declines over stand age at multiple spatial scales

  2025cites this paper
• Microhabitat and seasonal dynamics of soil fauna communities in upper Andean successional forests

  2025cites this paper
• Little influence of soil fauna on decomposition in successional upper Andean tropical forests

  2025cites this paper
• Forest structure, timber species regeneration, and timber volume dynamics along a logging gradient in a lowland tropical rainforest in Africa: Implications for biodiversity conservation and sustainable timber management

  2025cites this paper
• Unexpected microbial diversity in new Caledonia’s ultramafic ecosystems with conservation implications in a biodiversity hotspot

  2025cites this paper
• Temperate forest plants are associated with heterogeneous semi-open canopy conditions shaped by large herbivores

  2025cites this paper
• Drivers and benefits of natural regeneration in tropical forests

  2025cites this paper
• Impacts of deglaciation on biodiversity and ecosystem function

  2025cites this paper
• The Importance of Demography in Social Sciences

  2025cites this paper
• Diverging restoration pathways for overstory and understory communities in a Mediterranean-climate riparian ecosystem.

  2025cites this paper
• Successional Growth Dynamics of Woody Saplings in Tropical Dry Forest Understory

  2025cites this paper
• Crayfish molting as a disturbance effect in the assembly of ectosymbiotic communities

  2025cites this paper
• Complex ecological pathways drive boreal forest successional dynamics

  2025cites this paper
• The long-term effect of gap size on soil invertebrates in subalpine forest

  2025cites this paper
• Changes in species composition and community structure during plant–pollinator community assembly

  2025cites this paper
• Resilience of Aboveground Biomass of Secondary Forests Following the Abandonment of Gold Mining Activity in the Southeastern Peruvian Amazon

  2024cites this paper
• Power and Efficiency in Living Systems

  2024cites this paper
• Does the universal adaptive strategy theory apply to natural regeneration in heterogeneous subtropical karst forests?

  2024cites this paper
• Tropical forest succession increases trtaxonomic and functional tree richness but decreases evenness

  2024cites this paper
• Drivers of β-diversity and its component-dependence along the natural restoration in an extremely heterogeneous forest ecosystem

  2024cites this paper
• Land use history and landscape forest cover determine tropical forest recovery

  2024cites this paper
• From Stand to Forest: Woody Plant Recruitment in an Andean Restoration Project

  2024cites this paper
• Chronosequence and Temporal Changes in Soil Conditions, Vegetation Structure and Leaf Traits in a Tropical Dry Forest in Brazil

  2024cites this paper
• Caracterización de la lluvia y el banco de semillas en un relicto de bosque inundable urbano en proceso de restauración ecológica

  2024cites this paper
• Aridity and forest age mediate landscape scale patterns of tropical forest resistance to cyclonic storms

  2024cites this paper
• Leveraging heterogeneous LiDAR data to model successional stages at tree species level in temperate forests

  2024cites this paper
• Edge effect and species richness modulate biomass stocks and change over time in secondary forest fragments in the subtropical Atlantic Forest

  2024cites this paper
• Phenotypic plasticity and insect herbivory of trees in contrasting light environments in a Mexican rainforest

  2024cites this paper
• Multiscale Effects of Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Across the Tropics: Implications for the Sustainability of an Ancestral Agroecosystem

  2024cites this paper
• Drivers of soil fauna communities along a successional gradient in upper Andean tropical forests

  2024cites this paper
• Did organs precede organisms in the origin of life?

  2024cites this paper
• Composition and Diversity of Understory and Canopy Species Vary Along a Logging Gradient in an African Semi-Deciduous Tropical Rainforest

  2024cites this paper
• Variations in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Communities During Wetland and Forest Succession in Northeast China

  2024cites this paper
• A comprehensive framework for vegetation succession

  2024cites this paper
• Rainfall and soil properties driver the temporal dynamics of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal assemblages in a seasonally dry tropical forest

  2024cites this paper
• Light competition drives species replacement during secondary tropical forest succession

  2024cites this paper
• Second-growth forests of the Mexican tropics are reservoirs of timber species similar to old-growth forest: perspectives for sustainable forest management

  2024cites this paper
• Plant community stability, indicator species and their driving factors at a gradient of grazing intensity in an alpine meadow

  2024cites this paper
• Effect of grazing on the composition and floristic diversity during fallow at El-Tarf, Algeria

  2024cites this paper
• Height growth and biomass partitioning during secondary succession differ among forest light strata and successional guilds in a tropical rainforest

  2024cites this paper