Before revision: Dominance by annual plants has traditionally been considered a brief early stage of ecological succession preceding inevitable dominance by competitive perennials . A more recent, alternative view suggests that interactions between annuals and perennials can result in priority effects, causing annual dominance to persist  if they are initially more common.
After revision: Dominance by annual plants has traditionally been considered a brief early stage of ecological succession preceding inevitable dominance by competitive perennials . A more recent, alternative view suggests that interactions between annuals and perennials can result in priority effects, causing annual dominance to persist for decades if they are initially more common.