ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the nature of plant–environment relations, and the key concepts in the study of vegetation communities. Biogeographers have historically studied vegetation at all scales; the larger-scale biomes and formations were popular in the nineteenth century when the world's surface was first being explored and mapped. Other biogeographers have proposed different schemes of vegetation classification. Considerable attention has been paid to successions in biogeography because they reflect the dynamic nature of ecological communities, and illustrate the importance of the time factor in the development of plant communities. The English biogeographer Robert J. Whittaker studied processes of recolonization and succession in relation to the dispersal mechanisms of potential invading plants, and their biological interactions, and has been able to extend R. H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson's theory of island biogeography. The study of ecological successions formed an important part of twentieth-century biogeography. The principle of competitive replacement occurs in response to these environmental changes.
