Have you ever wondered how the beautiful Hawaiian Islands went from barren volcanic rocks to beautiful green islands filled with forests, animals and insects? All of this happened through a complex process called ecological succession, in which organisms gradually populate land that has just been created or has undergone change, such as the volcanic islands of Hawaii. Ecological succession is one of the forces that shape the Hawaiian Islands and allow them to thrive. The Hawaiian Islands were created by lava flows from volcanoes. The Earth is made up of tectonic plates in constant motion. Sometimes magma rises in the middle of a plate until it erupts on the seafloor, forming a hot spot. This creates volcanoes, and these volcanoes grow until they rise above sea level and create volcanic islands. This process is how all of the Hawaiian Islands were created. Even though the hotspot itself doesn't move, the tectonic plate it sits on does, and so continued movement creates many small volcanic islands along the way. This fact is demonstrated in an article from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, "as the plate moved over the hot spot, the chain of islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands chain was formed" ("How the Hawaiian Islands formed? The Hawaiian Islands archipelago contains a total of 132 islands, reefs and seamounts spanning 1,500 miles, caused by the movement of the Pacific Plate. This movement carries the plate northwestward at a rate of 5 to 10 cm/year, creating a large difference over time. The Hawaiian hotspot is currently located under the largest Hawaiian island, Big Island, formed by a total of 5 volcanoes. One of them, Mauna Loa, is known as the largest active volcano on the planet. ...... middle of article ...... This is a growing population of non-native species, which in turn could pose a threat in coming years to the number of populations of native species on the islands. Zimmerman et al. describes that “island forests appear to be in balance between two opposing factors,” meaning that native and nonnative plants compete for space in their shared ecosystem (1). The Hawaiian Volcanic Islands were first formed by volcanoes that erupted from the Hawaiian hotspot on the seafloor of the Pacific Plate. Organisms then populated the region through a long process called primary ecological succession, which transformed the islands into beautiful, verdant ecosystems. Since disturbances, whether human-made or natural, always affect these ecosystems, secondary ecological succession is perpetually used to allow the Hawaiian Islands to thrive..