Oldal 15 [15]
I. THE AIM AND POSITION OF ZOOCOENOLOGY
IN THE SYSTEM OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Zoocoenology is the study of the laws of animal assemblages. Using this
definition, zoocoenology is a strictly synbiological discipline and can only
consider a species if simultaneously evaluating its connections with other
species (Szelényi, 1955). The close relationship between zoocoenology and
autecology underpins the frequent intrusion of autecological concepts into
the zoocoenological framework. This continues to occur whilst coenologists
persist with the incorrect viewpoint that coenology deals with “species”. Due
to this stance, faunistics also appears in a potentially confusing proximity.
§ FAUNA AND ZOOCOENOSIS
Therefore, we must examine, firstly, the difference between fauna and
zoocoenosis, because we are convinced that we frequently present a faunal
list instead of a zoocoenosis. Maybe recently, instead of an area delimited by
political boundaries, we produce faunal lists of one or more association, i.e.
of a natural unit.
The fauna is the totality of species to be found in a delimited area, while
the zoocoenosis is the totality of populations that are existentially linked, at
least in one direction.
Faunistics, over and above taxonomic aspects, extends its horizons towards
evolution and zoogeography, and refers to, for example, boreal or
Mediterranean faunal elements, or relict species. Zoocoenology, exploring
more deeply in a vertical direction, uncovers food chains, and by considering
connections between such food chains, also extends in a horizontal direction.
The fauna is always linked to a territory, often with artificially sharp boundaries
(for example, the fauna of a county, or a country), and the goal of faunistics
is to study the occurrence of animal species in the most detail possible. Its
results are enumeration-like; publishing lists of taxonomic groups, detecting
new occurrences, and establishing how many species live in the area under
study, and analysing them according to their distribution. This approach is
unaltered when faunistical studies, as recently seen, have synecological