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22]I. The aim and position of zoocoenology in the system of biological sciences
biocoenology. Hence, production biological studies nearly always rely on
ecofaunistical analysis, and omit the finer analysis of the biocenosis and,
possibly, this dominance of production biology is the reason for the practice
that, under the theme of biocoenology, there is only analysis of the fauna of
various phytocoenoses.
The subject of production biology is the organic mass generated by plants
and animals. Generally, both are mentioned as production, their sum is
considered biomass. In theory, we cannot fault this, because it includes all
the organic matter produced or transformed by living beings. Less acceptable
is the extension of the term production to include organic matter produced
by both plants and animals, because the two are substantially different in
generation as well as chemical composition. If we call producent organisms
only those that produce organic material from inorganic material (mainly
by photosynthesis), then only the realised biomass can be called production.
Animal biomass cannot exist without these producents, so animals use “ready¬
made” production to produce further animal protein, in which case these
cannot properly share the same label. What is “produced” by animals is not
equivalent to plant-produced biomass, but a dependent, and importantly ¬
transformed production, which can be better called “transformatum”.
Production, in theory, is independent of transformatum, while the pre¬
existence of the former is indispensable for the latter. Between these two
categories, we find the heterotrophic organisms, and these show similarities
(for example, the presence of chitin in fungi) to animal biomass not only in
their nutrient needs but also chemical composition. Production by such
organisms (for example, fungi parasitic on animals) could be called
“recuperated production”. The volume of production and recuperated
production, in all cases, much exceeds the amount of transformatum, as the
plant biomass is a multiple of animal biomass, and this relationship is an
elementary condition of the existence of any biocoenosis (Heikertinger, 1951).
Thus, the branches of synbiology discussed above can be defined as follows:
synecology deals with assemblages of living beings, their relationships with
each other and with their abiotic environment; according to whether the
focus of interest is the close interactions among them, their coexistence due
to ecological factors, or flows of materials and energy, synecology can lead
towards biocoenology, ecofaunistics, or production biology. The starting unit
is the ecosystem, or the biome.
The aim of biocoenology is the description of the organic unity of plant
and animal associations, their interactions, and connections to the microbiome.
In practice, it has three branches: phytocoenology, zoocoenology, and
microbiology. Its basic unit is the biocoenosis.
The aim of ecofaunistics is to study, qualitatively and quantitatively, the
animal component of a given biome, without considering their interactions,
or only taking these into account in their effect on structure. Its basic unit is
the animal assemblage (zoon).