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16 | I. The aim and position of zoocoenology in the system of biological sciences promorphology, eidonomy, and anatomy)). From morphological conclusions, it is easy to delineate groups that have uniform morphology and, historically, this lead to the development of taxonomy. The individual as living material presents problems that are of material nature, as it relates to the functioning of the living material. When the individuum is viewed as material, by necessity, we are lead to the next branch, functional studies (biontodynamics, composed of physiology and psychology). Material is not only functioning, but also has a spatial extension, so the individual is the species, which, being a specific material, is manifested in innumerable individuals. Therefore, the distribution of individuals must be viewed as the material relation of the semaphoront and, from examining this, distribution science (biontogeography) is born. The relationship of the individual and the species to itself, and its living and non-living environment, presents ethological and ecological problems, and the study of these relationships, hypotagology, (comprising autecology and ethology) is born. The central branch of idiobiology, developmental studies (biogenetics, with ontogenetics, phylogenetics, genetics and ethology as its fields), relates to all three dimensions, and plays a role of ever-increasing importance in the modern view of life. Life itself is morphing and evolving in space as in time; the material and relationships develop equally and, therefore, the developmental studies have the strictest link to all disciplines mentioned so far. Taxonomy, which originally started with a morphological basis, is now wholly imbued with an evolutionary world view (thus it is logical that, in Dudich’s (1938) system, it appears among the genetic sciences), and the same starting point governs the solution to the main problems of distributional studies. A very tight, bidirectional link also exists between autecology and development, as all kinds of relationships of animals to anything else are related to heredity, although the path of development is also influenced by autecological factors. The other group of sciences, synbiology, is formed when we view the semaphoront as a member of a community, thus we never consider it in itself but, at least, as a member of a population that relates to another population or community. The problems surfacing from this view must always be addressed: how does this focal population relate to other populations, and what are the relational (assemblage) needs that influence its positon? The semaphoront, thus viewed correctly as a group of semaphoronts, can also be studied from the perspectives of morphology, material and relationships. According to morphology, the groups of organisms can be divided into two major units, plant and animal associations. In addition to the morphological separation, there are also feeding lifestyles so profoundly different that allow the separate consideration of these two groups of morphs. Thus, are born the twin fields of plant sociology and zoocoenology. Biocoenology, the branch of science uniting these two, is the consequence of the intimate relationship,
