Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🌱 Succession stage 🌱 Temporary community
seral

seral

9.9
A group of plants and animals at a temporary stage before a mature community forms
  • noun
  • /ˈsɪrəl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : seral
  • The forest will go through several seral stages before it becomes fully mature.

Examples

  • In contrast, 129 species were found in lower abundance in old growth, as compared with the other seral stages.

    Academic text (2002)

  • Ecologists study the different seral communities that emerge after a wildfire.

  • Each seral phase plays a crucial role in the development of the ecosystem.

How Mature

subclimax
  • Specialized
9.9
seral
  • Specialized
9.9
pioneer
36 4.4

Surface Forms

seral singular
serals plural

Morphology

seral = ser + al

Although the form can be parsed as the combining element 'ser-' + nominal/adjectival suffix '-al', 'ser-' is not a standalone English word and the sense is a technical ecological stage, so the meaning is not transparently predictable from the parts.

Etymology

Seral comes from the Latin word series, which means 'a sequence', and the noun seral names one stage in that sequence. So a seral community is a temporary step that comes before the final, stable community as the place changes over time.