Ecological succession has been compared to the development of an organism and the climax community to a kind of superorganism. F. E. Clements (1916, 1936) was the best-known proponent of this idea, and H. A. Gleason (1926, 1939), the best-known early opponent of the idea of a community as a kind of superorganism. Gleason proposed that species are distributed independently of each other and that most overlaps in distributions are the result of coincidence, not mutual interdependence. Most modern ecologists hold a view more similar to that of Gleason. Which of the following graphs showing hypothetical distributions of species along an environmental gradient supports the superorganismic view of communities? How does the other graph support the individualistic view of species held by Gleason? (A, B, C, and D represent the distributions of species along an environmental gradient.)

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C D A B A B C D Environmental gradient Environmental gradient