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A comprehensive scheme is presented which provides qualitative models of vegetation dynamics in communities subject to recurrent disturbance. The scheme has been derived to deal mainly with terrestrial communities dominated by higher plants, but may be more widely applicable.

The scheme utilizes a small number of life history attributes termed ‘vital attributes’ which pertain to the potentially dominant species in a particular community. Three main groups of vital attributes are recognized, relating to the method of persistence of species during a disturbance and to their subsequent arrival, to their ability to establish and grow to maturity following the disturbance, and to the time taken for them to reach critical stages in their life history.

In the application of the scheme, each major species is first categorized into a ‘species type’, determined by its specific attributes in the first two vital attribute …