Alder

Alders are nitrogen factories. They harbor bacteria in root nodules that convert atmospheric nitrogen into forms accessible to plants, adding 50-100 kg nitrogen per hectare per year to soil. This is the facilitation mechanism in ecological succession: alders don't just colonize nutrient-poor soil - they transform it, enriching the substrate so that species unable to establish initially can colonize later. On Mount St. Helens' volcanic ash, nitrogen fixers like alder were essential infrastructure for forest recovery. They built the soil that enabled the forest.

But alders are trapped by their own success. They grow 1-2 meters per year, reaching 10-20 meters in 20 years - dominating early succession because they're optimized for bare, nitrogen-poor soil with high light availability. But those same traits doom them when the soil is rich, the canopy closes, and light diminishes. Alders are shade-intolerant with 30-60 year lifespans. They literally create the conditions for their own replacement. The succession trap: optimize for the current environment, and you ensure it won't stay current.

The organizational lesson is profound: Companies that solve their customers' biggest problems often enable competitors who solve the next problem. Alders teach that facilitation and displacement aren't separate processes - they're the same process viewed at different time scales. First movers who fix broken markets shouldn't be surprised when second movers optimized for fixed markets displace them. The question isn't whether you'll be replaced, but whether you'll capture enough value before replacement arrives.