Psammosere

[1] A psammosere is an intermediate stage in ecological succession, known as a seral community, that begins life on newly exposed coastal sand.

It was named by Frederic E. Clements who described the sequence in Plant Succession 1916,[3] although it had also been observed by Henry Chandler Cowles after he conducted several studies on the sand dunes surrounding Lake Michigan, which was influenced by the work of Eugenius Warming.

For instance, the drainage slows down as the land becomes more compact and the soils improve in quality, and the pH drops as the proportion of seashell fragments reduces and the amount of humus increases.

This is the climax community, defined as the point where a plant succession does not develop any further because it has reached equilibrium with the environment, in particular the climate.

These lower wind speeds can be because of distance from the shoreline or the formation of higher dunes, acting as windbreaks, or a combination of both of these factors.