<p>Because freshwater wetlands are dynamic with constantly changing biotic communities, successional processes can affect their ecology. We described secondary-succession of aquatic invertebrate assemblages in 10 near-pristine Carolina bays (shallow, precipitation-based depressional wetlands) in Georgia, USA. Hydrologies ranged from seasonal to perennial We hypothesized that invertebrate assemblages would either progressively change annually (undergo succession) or remain static, and where succession was evident, assemblages would diverge individualistically and non-insects that display site-fidelity would be primarily responsible. We sampled invertebrate assemblages in the 10 wetlands seasonally over 6 years. We used Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling to visualize assemblage variation, and Permutational Analysis of Variance to partition variance across time and space. Annual variation was significant for only some wetlands; we classified sites lacking annual change as “non-successional” and sites with annual change as “successional”. In successional wetlands, assemblages shifted individualistically with unique, rather than similar, trajectories. However, assemblages in all successional wetlands reached a compositional threshold that constrained assemblage composition. Insects, rather than non-insects, were most associated with successional wetlands. Non-successional and successional wetlands occurred in close proximity, but where succession was evident, trajectories were inconsistent, making predictions of assemblage change difficult. Some wetlands changed, some didn’t, and those that changed did not do so in parallel, complicating the use of these habitats as reference sites. However, because variation was confined within a regional constraint, this range standard may be a useful guide for using invertebrate assemblages to assess wetland condition; i.e., assemblages developing outside this natural range of variation are likely aberrant.</p>