[On the mechanism of evolution at the ecosystem level of life organization]

Just like the studies of species adaptations phenomenology do not reveal the mechanism of a new species adaptation emerging (speciation), so the enormous bulk of data on phenomenology of ecosystem processes, collected to date, does not disclose the mechanism of evolution at the ecosystem level of living matter organization. An attempt is made to mark out, among the whole variety of evolutionary events in ecosystem form of life, those components attributable to rnicroevolution (by analogy with successful studies of 1940s applied to population-species form of life). It is assumed that at the ecosystem level biogeocenosis (BGC) should be designated as an elementary evolutionary structure, alteration of a BGC species composition — as an elementary evolutionary event, gene pool of a species population (cenogenome) — as elementary evolutionary material, and natural group (cenogenetic) selection — as a directed elementary evolutionary factor. An origin of a new or destruction of an old BGC turns out to be a qualitative stage of microevolutionary process at the ecosystem level.