Primary succession is one of two types of biological and ecological succession of plant life, occurring in an environment in which new substrate devoid of vegetation and usually lacking soil, such as a lava flow or area left from retreated glacier, is deposited. In other words, it is the gradual growth of an ecosystem over a longer period.
In contrast, secondary succession occurs on substrate that previously supported vegetation before an ecological disturbance from smaller things like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions which destroyed the plant life.
Read more about Primary Succession: Occurrence, Examples
Famous quotes containing the words primary and/or succession:
“The primary function of a theater is not to please itself, or even to please its audience. It is to serve talent.”
—Robert Brustein (b. 1927)
“the negro Babo took by succession each Spaniard forward, and asked him whose skeleton that was, and whether, from its whiteness, he should not think it a white’s.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)