Biodiversity, the number of living beings, and the biomass of an ecosystem tend to increase as the succession progresses and they stabilize when the climax stage is reached.

At the initial stage of the succession the use of carbon dioxide and the fixation of carbon into the biomass are high, since the total number of living beings in the ecosystem is increasing. At the climax stage, the use of carbon dioxide by photosynthesis equals the production by cellular respiration and the fixation of carbon into the biomass tends to zero.