ecological-succession
Ecological succession is the process by which plant communities change over time, with pioneer species gradually giving way to more complex assemblages through a series of predictable stages. Understanding succession is fundamental to plant science because it reveals how vegetation recovers after disturbances such as fire, flood, or human activity, and how soil development, light availability, and interspecies competition shape which plants can establish and persist. This knowledge informs conservation, habitat restoration, and predictions of how plant communities may shift in response to environmental change.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-05-08
Scientists found that the type of plant matters more than ecosystem age in determining what bacteria and fungi live inside plant leaves. Random chance also plays a surprisingly large role — meaning these microscopic leaf inhabitants are shaped by both the plant itself and a degree of unpredictability.
Host plant identity was a stronger predictor of leaf microbiome composition than ecosystem age, with all measurable deterministic factors together explaining only 10–11% of bacterial and fungal community variation.
Stochastic processes (ecological drift) accounted for the majority of unexplained variation, suggesting random chance is a central driver of leaf endophyte assembly.
Predicted bacterial functional potential was more consistently structured (27% explained) than community composition, implying that even as microbial species turn over, their collective jobs inside leaves stay relatively stable across seasons and successional stages.