The Role of Disturbance
Equilibrium: long-term stable conditions lead to stable community dominated by K-strategists (climax community); they would return to equilibrium after disturbance -- long believed hypothesis
Non-equilibrium appears now to be more common because disturbances might be much more frequent that previously believed
Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis: systems with moderate level of disturbances exhibit highest diversity
- provide disturbed patches of different age and, thus, different succession stage
- prevent climax community, in which few dominant competitors competitively eliminate most other species
- too high disturbance frequency will favor only r-strategists (lower diversity)