[Annual cyclic changes and self-organization processes in the marine sea-bottom organisms]

The dynamics of marine microbenthos species structure shows clear annual cycle. From late winter till early autumn community changes towards increasing complexity and orderliness. The sharp increase in available energy (light and heat) in the beginning of the winter acts as trigger of these processes. The further development of the community is connected with system fluctuations arising as a result of interactions or organisms between each other and their environment (feeding, competition, predation). In the end of summer these processes are terminated by the state of high species diversity, maximum species coordination, expansion of inhabited zone within the sediments, and the distinct segregation of space and nutrient resources among species (i.e., achievement of ecological complementarity). Decrease in light and temperature causes the reverse process--weakening of organism coordination and significant simplification of the community structure. In general, these changes correspond to the theory of self-organization in nonequilibrium systems (Prigogine, Stengers, 2001). The most important distinction of observed processes from the classical self-organization is their cyclic dynamics, i.e. the annual return of community to its most simple state at the end of winter.