Marks of stochastic determinacy of forest ecosystem autogenous succession in markov models

This article describes a method to model the course of forest ecosystem succession to the climax state by means of a Markov chain. In contrast to traditional methods of forest succession modelling based on changes of vegetation types, several variants of the vertical structure of communities formed by late-successional tree species are taken as the transition states of the model. Durations of succession courses from any stage are not set in absolute time units, but calculated as the average number of steps before reaching the climax in a unified time scale. The regularities of succession courses are revealed in the proper time of forest ecosystems shaping. The evidences are obtained that internal features of the spatial and population structure do stochastically determine the course and the pace of forest succession. The property of developing vegetation of forest communities is defined as an attribute of stochastic determinism in the course of autogenous succession.