Succession is the natural process where one specie of plant will displace another by taking or blocking resources such as water, light or anything else a plant or fungus needs to live.

When designing a self-contained ecosystem, the food chain for micro-biology has to be worked out first. What goes on in the soil has more influence than what is going on top of the soil layer. That means we need to grow soil; not plants. And before we can grow soil, we need to grow ocean. But we will start with soil today.

The litter layer is a real thin compost bin. It's natures' way of taking apart dead things and reusing it for new growth. This is where a lot of the chemical reactions take place.

Below is a diagram of plant succession in the soil. In general (not always), larger plants, like trees and hard wooded stems, take more fungi and a more diverse sets of Protists and Nematodes for the soil food chain. Grasses require more bacteria soil. It's best to group plants that have similar and different soil needs to establish a strong growth. This also goes for the plants root structure and what family they belong to.
Example:
Tap roots, Fan roots and etc...

Example: If you plant a Prosopis glandulosa in the middle of a lawn, both are too far apart in success for them to be compatible. Water will be taken from the tree by the grass. The Prosopis glandulosa belongs to the Fabaceae, Leguminosae or Papilionaceae family. It fixes nitrogen once the roots die. It helps the soil to establish and give back to lawns by shading it. I don't recall if the fixing bacteria is Rhizobia or not. Perhaps some one can tell me.

The strange part is grass also fixes nitrogen and uses Azospirillum brasilense to fix nitrogen. The grass and the Prosopis glandulosa help build the soil for plants to grow, but they can't grow with each other. The trick is to configure the litter layer so both can grow at the same time. It's done by planting the Prosopis glandulosa in 50% sand, 20% pea stones and the rest is clay soil. Make sure there is a barrier between the trunk of the Prosopis glandulosa and the grass. Now the Prosopis glandulosa has a tap root that breaks up soil compaction and allows the grass roots to grow deeper into the soil. This reduces the requirement for watering the lawn.

A similar thing can be done with Fava Beans and red winter wheat. The Fava beans die and leave the nitrogen proteins. Wheat takes the nodules and consumes the NO3 once it is taken apart by the soil bacteria. The wheat stresses the soil to build more food chain bacteria from the Fava bean.

Below is a picture of plant succession on top of the soil. More disturbed soil generally grows grasses and things with tap roots. When the soil is more established, more "forest" things move in.



Pictured below is an example where one plant takes over and is not contained. When this Biosphere was taken apart a few weeks ago, you can see how the New Zealand Spinach started to take over. This Biosphere was designed for food production on a water-table suspended over a marine water layer. It's been hermetically sealed for a year and a half. CO2 levels stayed around 400 ppm. The intention was to take advantage of Woodland Climates because of the proximity of the water condenser. That is why a Maidenhair Fern and New Zealand Spinach were planted together. Strawberries work too. They take more water out of the soil than the air. There is limited space for the water-table; hence, plants have to be chosen carefully before you end up with a mess.


You can see the Maidenhair Fern on the right and the Spinach growing to the left. The fresh water condensor is to the right. It's a small grey and black "finned" thing.


Further Reading:
One of the first attempts to document succession was done in the late 1800s. The concept of succession has been known for centuries, at least on an intuitive level. Pictured below is the front cover for Fred Clements book on Succession. It's about 500 pages long. It's available online from any library for free.