Neighborhood Weeds
From the perspective of wildlife human civilization can best be described as disturbance. Civilization creates disturbances everywhere, and thus cities and suburbs are perfect environments for R strategists species. Therefore, the weeds in one’s neighborhood are perfect for understanding the early stages of plant succession.
I have observed 96 species of neighborhood weeds in my area. Through observation and reading I have noticed that these plants seem to fall into different levels of succession and tolerances to different stresses and that these plants can and do fall into multiple levels of different categories. Multiplying these different levels together gives you the number of permutations of possible successional plants in the area, and thus the minimal potential species richness of successional plants in the area. I have observed 5 levels of succession, 2 levels of tolerances to compacted soils, 3 levels of tolerances to shade, 4 levels of pH tolerances, 4 levels of tolerances to different of water conditions, 3 levels of tolerances to lack of nitrogen, 2 levels of tolerances to lack of phosphorus, and 2 levels of tolerances to lack of potassium. This gives us 1,920 permutations of succession plant species for this area.
