Volume 42, Number 1,
December 1996:
The Role of Animals in Succession

Text-only version

ABOUT THIS ISSUE
- about KSN
- about the authors

IN THIS ISSUE
- What is "Succession"?
- Primary Succession
- Secondary Succession
- Pioneer Communities
- Seral Stages
- Climax Communities
- Potential Natural Communities
- Frederick Clements - Father of the Succession Concept
- Victor Shelford
- How do we know if a community is a seral stage or a climax?
- Succesional Indicator Species
- Cyclical Succession
- The Lack of Dominance in Tropical Climax Forests
- Terrestrial Shredders
- Aquatic Shredders
- Ants Revegetate the Outback!
- "Bugs" Reclaim Stripmines!
- Birds and Succession
- Dead Dodo, Dead Tree!
- Ants Around a Prairie Anthill
- How Plants Bribe Ants to Disperse their Seeds
- Prairie Dogs
- Animals that "Plow" our Soil
- Grazing
- Manure, and Dung Beetles
- Seed Banks
- Mammals as Dispersal Agents

SLIDESHOW
View all images in this issue.

The Role of Animals in Succession
by Thomas Eddy and John Richard Schrock

The Role of Animals in Succession Index of Images

Cover: Nutrients tied up in dead leaves and other plant tissues are well protected by the plant cuticle. Succession required that plant nutrients be returned to soil and be made available to future plants. Shredders are important invertebrate animals that mechanically shred dead leaves, exposing the plant nutrients and dispersing the bacterial and fungal spores that can decompose the dead plants and build soil.

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