Succession in a Sub-Alpine Forest

 

Karen E. Bedford and Ruth St. John

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 1994, Volume 15

Abstract

Succession — the replacement, with time, of one community by another — is usually demonstrated by observing two or more communities of different ages, usually in different locations. The disadvantages of this approach are (1) that it usually involves time-consuming travel, and (2) that it is hard to find two or more communities of different ages with similar physical environments. Instead, we go to a single forest community, and compare the species composition between mature trees and juvenile trees (seedlings and young saplings). We assume that the forest is at its climax stage if the species composition of these groups is the same, and at a successional stage if the composition is different. The chi-square test is used to test whether the juveniles are the same as the matures.

Keywords:  succession

University of Toronto (1993)