What is Lake Succession?
The number and kinds of plants and animals making up a lake community changes continuously. These progressive changes are called succession. Often it takes hundreds of years for the succession of life in a lake to be completed.
Lakes are short-lived features from a geological standpoint. Over time, a lake will fill with sediment and dead plant material until there is no longer any standing water. The process starts with the cattails, rushes, and surface vegetation growing around the shore, and the process is sped up by human activity in the watershed. The dead remains of these plants fall to the bottom to form sediment. As the sediment builds up, the lake begins filling. New soggy ground around the shore encourages other plants to take root.
The process continues as nearly concentric rings of different vegetative types establish themselves around the lake. In time, rings of vegetation extend towards the center of the lake depression. Eventually the lake becomes a marsh, which over time succeeds to dry land.
June 7, 2007 12:11 PM | Category: Watershed