| Abstract: | Applications of the fractal to describing the species structure of communities are discussed. Fundamental notions of fractal geometry are explained in the first part. The problem of applying the concept of fractal to describe the spatial allocation of particular species and of community as a whole is reviewed in the second part. In the final part, the usage of the selfsimirity principle for analyzing community organization is substantiated, and evidence of the fractal structure of biocenoses is presented according to Whittaker's concept of alpha diversity. It is shown that community is characterized, as a fractal object, by scale invariance, by power function relationship between the number of structural elements of the community (individuals, populations, species) and the scale (sampling effort), and, finally, by fractional value of the power (fractal dimension). Power function is the formula the takes into account the share of rare species, or species represented by a single individual. providing for no saturation of the function f(x). This formula also does not contradict the A.P. Levich's "rule of ecological non-additivity" and, lastly, allows the application of fractal formalism to characterize the species structure of a community. It is concluded that the mathematical image of species richness is a monofractal, i.e., a set characterised by only one parameter, fractal dimension. Thus, the species structure of a community (as well as the pattern of its spatial allocation) displays self-similarity and is a fractal. |
