Sentence:  [S]ome communities persisted as repeating early successional <WSD>seres</WSD> ("disclimaxes"), while climax communities could contain small areas of different <WSD>sere</WSD> communities. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A natural succession of animal or plant communities in an ecosystem, especially a series of communities succeeding one another from the time a habitat is unoccupied to the point when a climax community is achieved. (from early 20th c.)