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II. BIOCOENOSIS AND ZOOCOENOSIS § THE CONCEPT OF BIOCOENOSIS The word biocoenosis has a very wide range of interpretations by different authors. The main reason for this is that the term has two meanings: it is used to express a relationship (living in a biocoenosis) and, also, to denote an assemblage (community) that this relationship brings together. In other words, the expression biocoenosis is used to denote the process of coexistence, as well as to name the resulting entity. In all likelihood, this double meaning is the reason that authors, in some cases, use the term for organisms living in very small spatial units, while others use the same term only for very large assemblages (Szelényi, 1955). To clarify our viewpoint, and clearly identify our interpretation of the term, we state the following. Henceforth, we will not use “community” as a synonym for biocoenosis, because we are not referring to the assemblage, but to the relationships that make an assemblage an ecological community. For example, insects and bacteria living on a carcass comprise a community but they do not constitute a biocoenosis. Therefore, the term community indicates that a relationship exists: community infers a network of interactions that bring groups of organisms into coexistence. The biocoenosis is not visible nor tangible, its existence can only be deduced from certain causal relationships and is represented by all the living things that are held together by these interrelationships. The community is a visible and tangible entity, even if the constituent relationships can only partially registered. The term biocoenosis is interpreted as an association of living beings, never limited to either plants or animals; on the contrary, a biocoenosis always incorporates all organisms in each space, if these organisms form an interacting community. Only then, can these species be considered a community. This means that the constituent organisms must be members of groups of living organisms that mutually presume each other’s presence, that are mutually interdependent and, consequently, they influence each other. Therefore, a biocoenosis, in our perception, is a total community, where any, and all, species are included, from bacteria through hetero- and autotrophic plants to animals, where they are in a state of association, i.e. they form an ecological community. Henceforth, I will avoid expressions like
