Once present, the pioneer species colonize the area and their populations grow. Wind velocity and air movements are altered, etc. Thus, the overall environment of the community is altered and new species, adapted to the new environment, invade and eventually replace the previous community. Eventually, a plant community becomes established that is able to maintain its species. This last stage of succession is the climax community .
Humans impact biological communities most often by some type of disturbance.
The process of simply mowing your lawn, disturbs the developing grass community causing to regress back to a early pioneer stage characterized by low species diversity, and highly variable environmental conditions. Logging, remove the existing climax or subclimax community causing the assemblage of organisms to revert back to an early stage of succession. In general, human impact results in a lower diversity of animal and plant life, a less stable biotic environment and a more variable physical environment. Your instructor will discuss with you, details of some of the most common causes of human impact in the Superior area. Your class will then visit a local biological community and study ecological succession while looking for signs of human impact.