hydrosere
Sign in to saveupright=1.2|thumb|Mute swan (Cygnus olor) in a hydrosere community at sunrise. A hydrosere is a plant succession which occurs in an area of fresh water such as in oxbow lakes and kettle lakes. In time, an area of open freshwater will naturally dry out, ultimately becoming woodland. During this change, a range of different landtypes such as swamp and marsh will succeed each other.
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
11 sectionsContents
- Stages
- Phytoplankton stage
- Submerged stage
- Floating stage
- Reed swamp stage
- Sedge-meadow stage
- Woodland stage
- Climax stage
- Examples
- See also
- References
upright=1.2|thumb|Mute swan (Cygnus olor) in a hydrosere community at sunrise. A hydrosere is a plant succession which occurs in an area of fresh water such as in oxbow lakes and kettle lakes. In time, an area of open freshwater will naturally dry out, ultimately becoming woodland. During this change, a range of different landtypes such as swamp and marsh will succeed each other.
The succession from open water to climax woodland takes centuries or millennia. Some intermediate stages will last a shorter time than others. For example, swamp may change to marsh within a decade or less. How long it takes will depend largely on the amount of siltation occurring in the area of open water.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “hydrosere” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.