Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A stage in the succession of an ecological community preceding the attainment of a climax community, often persisting because of the occurrence of fires, floods, or other disturbances.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Most upland areas are covered by subclimax pine forest, which has an understory of grasses and sedges called savannas.

    Outer Coastal Plain Mixed Forest Province (Bailey) 2009

  • Grassland types include hydrophilous grassland on sandy riverine soils dominated by Acroceras macrum and Ischaemum arcuatum; high-lying grasslands on sand, a diverse fire-subclimax community, palm-veld with Hyphaene coriacea and Phoenix reclinata, another fire-subclimax community; Echinochloa floodplain grassland; and low-lying grasslands on clay.

    Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, South Africa 2008

  • The shifting cultivation cycle has also been reduced from twelve to twenty years to five to eight years, resulting in the perpetuation of a bamboo subclimax that has begun to replace the broadleaf forests.

    Northern Triangle subtropical forests 2008

  • Mature forest cut for swidden agriculture generally is succeeded in this ecoregion by a grassy subclimax that supports far fewer species than the mature forest.

    Tenasserim-South Thailand semi-evergreen rain forests 2008

  • If degradation is extensive, then forest regeneration will not occur at all, and the vegetation consists of a subclimax of Imperata grasslands or the exotic weed Eupatorium adenophorum.

    Northern Indochina subtropical forests 2007

  • In the elided portion, he went into some suggested adjustments of voice in the sections leading up to the subclimax and climax, where the writing might have lost some necessary passion, and I think he's probably right about that.

    The spayed club shunn 2004

  • In the elided portion, he went into some suggested adjustments of voice in the sections leading up to the subclimax and climax, where the writing might have lost some necessary passion, and I think he's probably right about that.

    The spayed club shunn 2004

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