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§ Fauna and zoocoenosis | 15
If we want to order the collected material of an area using coenological
characteristics, taxonomy will be the least suitable approach, and we cannot
be satisfied with establishing the quantitative characteristics, because we need
not only this facet, but to decide what roles the individual populations perform
in the community. In other words: we arrange the collected population groups
according to their roles in the zoocoenosis, as we attempt to do below.
§ THE SYSTEM OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
We have seen that, from a cognitive point of view, the smallest unit of all
biological systems is the semaphoront, and practically all scientific research
relates to its representation as an individuum. According to our view, this is
the unit where all biological disciplines meet; at the two component parts of
bio-ontology, idiobiology and synbiology (Dudich, 1938). These are constructed
by two views of the semaphoront: a) as part of an individual organism
(species), and; b) as a member of a group of organisms (population). From
these standpoints, directions of study, research methods, and aims are formed.
The unavoidable condition of the undisturbed development of community
biology is that it be free of idiobiological considerations. We can only avoid
this if we consistently view the semaphoront not as a species but as a member
of the community, and frame all our research questions accordingly.
Both the individual and the community approach meet at three points,
with consequent additional divisions for both the idio- and the synbiology.
All semaphoronts are material realities, taking a given form, and this material
reality relates to space, time and the semaphoront itself in some way. The
same holds for communities, which are also material entities, of a given form,
and, again, relate to space, time and the communities themselves. These three
“dimensions” correspond to the individual disciplines for both idio- and
synbiology, which are, naturally, not sharply separated. The name of the
individual discipline means that the problems of the given discipline center
around questions reflected in that name, but they have bordering areas where
these problems are in contact, may overlap, and, also link semaphoront and
community more fully (Plate I). On Plate I, the appropriate arrows symbolise
these interdependencies.
We should not forget that the material-form relationship is intimately
linked, and cannot be separated from each other, and this means that the
research emphasis shifts in one or the other direction. Therefore, it is natural
that the fields of science with such a research emphasis form a uniform whole,
and are manifested as idio- or synbiology.
When the semaphoront is treated as an individual, or as a member of a
species, we cultivate idiobiology. When the research direction aims to clarify
relationships of form and shape, this branch of research should be called
morphology (structural studies, biontostatics (which has, as components,