VIEW OF SUCCESSION

View of succession

View of succession

In 1916 Clements the foremost proponent of the view that succession represented an orderly and predictable process analogous to embryological development. Succession in his view was highly deterministic and predictable and comprised an emergent house of the scheme (i.e. the entire is more than the sum of the parts). Each stage was needed for the next culminating in establishment on a stable ecosystem - homeostatic outlook - where the climax stage accomplishes greatest resistance to disturbance. The means envisioned for this succession was facilitation. One stage paving the way to the next. ...