Microbial community ecologists: what's the best resource you can recommend to understand differences btw. community assembly vs. succession, esp. related to soil communities? It seems 'succession' is often invoked to include time, even if there is no explicit disturbance.

E.g. 'succession in the rhizosphere.' Would a living root in soil constitute a disturbance for the native microbial community?

Or can succession just be really broadly applied to changes in communities through time, after some kind of change is induced?

E.g. From Chang et al. 2016: "Broadly speaking, succession research is rooted in studies that describe the development and trajectory of communities and (often) ecosystems over time after a known disturbance (defined as removal of biomass from abiotic or biotic forces)".

@colinaverill @kristenobacter @erinnuccio @Jeffinerca @EmilyDWhalen @MAnthony02 @danielsmaynard @BuchkowskiR