I reckon every one of us has spent more than the occasional moment caught up in a daydream about what this country looked like in its natural state. Whether on horseback or ½-ton, we’ve parked and looked over Creation in our part of the world and imagined. Maybe it was prairie grass as far as the eye could see, herds of buffalo, intermingled with antelope with fierce plains wolf and grizzly keeping them on the move, while hawks circled high overhead. Or maybe it was forest so thick and bountiful, teaming with wildlife, opening into meadows where Nature’s creatures browsed and grazed; and the music of songbirds filled the air. Whatever the case and wherever the place, what we are doing in those daydreams is taking ourselves back to a different successional time in terms of what was birthed, lived, thrived and died within that community, be it plant, animal, insect, watershed and even the air.

All natural communities change. This gradual change from one community to another is called succession. Most natural communities strive to develop greater complexity, which creates greater stability. From unstable bare ground where there are very few living organisms of any kind, more complex and stable forest or grass communities form over time. Although these complex communities continue to change, those changes are often hard for the average person to notice on a day-to-day basis, that is until some major disturbance comes along.

Common sense tells us the burr under the saddle as far as Mother Nature is concerned is humankind. We have tinkered with these natural communities the world over. Fire, which is most often human caused, sets succession back to an earlier stage as does cutting and clearing forest communities. The lack of appropriate grazing management for both domestic stock and wildlife can reduce pasture and range productivity and thus stocking rates. And we have all seen what happens if the ground gets turned “wrong-side up” to grow crops! All of these human actions which set back succession to a more simple state also set up the conditions for explosions of undesirable insects and diseases. Water and soil are likely to erode resulting in the loss of soil organic matter. All of this can translate into trouble at the bottom line of the profit/loss tally sheet.

It’s one thing to think about these successional changes above ground based on what we can see, but my understanding is the changes below ground are even more powerful, because there is generally more life below ground than above. (Cowboy arithmetic tells me if there is an average of 7.75 tons of microorganisms [the little fellers the like of which include earthworms, mites, nematodes, bacteria and protozoa] per acre, then the stocking rate below ground may well be higher than above ground!) Add to that all the roots and root hairs (plants also have as much growth below ground as above) and you can begin to see the scope of life beneath our boots. I guess if we carry on with our logic, we can see succession isn’t confined to plants and animals on land – water based communities would be successional and the make-up of the air surrounding us could alter as well. As life on earth changes and human activities change the fine balance of gases in the air pocket that surround the earth are bound to change. Keeping the balance gets to be a tricky proposition.