1. What is ecological succession in general?
Ecological succession is a process where an ecosystem change and evolves over time. We have two types of ecological succession-primary and secondary.
Primary succession is the process where the succession starts in new habitats, which has never been colonized by any species.
Secondary succession is also when the succession start in new habitats, but now takes place on a previously colonized location, which is damaged or disturbed.
We also have three different stages in ecological succession- pioneer, establish and the climax stage.
The first stage is the pioneer stage. In this stage, it is the most independent living plants in an area who now will start growing. We call these pioneer plants.…show more content… What happen after the ice melts away? (How does life begin to grow again? How does it look differently from before? Why?)
Like I said earlier, there is two types of succession and in this case, primary succession will start. That is because when the ice melts, and the only thing left behind is rocks, we have a new habitat that no one has colonized before.
In this scenario, primary successions can start two different ways.
Although there is nothing but barren rocks beneath the glacier, there will be an environment around the ice. So one situation is when the glacier melts away, the area around starts to grow inwards to where the glacier used to be. Since the area do not have soil, only the pioneer plants around will start growing.
In Canada, they have Lichens and some Lichens only need water and sunlight. Lichens often live on the surface of rocks, and since there is only rocks left behind in my scenario, it makes it easy for Lichens to live there. Therefore, there is a big chance Lichens are the first pioneer plants after the glacier.ᶟ
The other option is that wind, birds or other animals passes this area and maybe leave leaf, sticks, food or something behind, that later breaks down and for example, becomes soil. This can for example be the moose passing by. It is some of the most common animal in Canada. Now it have a foundation, which makes it easier for seeds brought with the wind to land and start