Oldal 36 [36]
34 | II. Biocoenosis and zoocoenosis
(1930: 30) for cases of the biocoenological context where the term denotes
a plant and its associated phytophagous organisms. To avoid an excessive
complication of terminology, Janos Balogh (1946) also suggests the provisional
use of association; in addition, he thinks it is even permissible to use
“association” for higher categories of plant sociology and continued the
development of the zoocoenological terminology in this direction (Balogh,
1953). We, however, in agreement with several other authors (Hesse, 1924;
Palmgren, 1928; Krogerus, 1932; Dudich, 1939; Lindberg, 1944, Schwenke,
1953), cannot accept this suggestion; they judge that this term ought to be
reserved for use by plant sociology, and the first two authors, and especially
Dudich, provide weighty arguments of general validity against a hasty
synthesis. We also see substantial differences between plant and animal
associations; above all, the difference in structure is very noticeable. The
[plant] association, homogeneous from the point of view of nutritional
biology, with its relatively constant composition and biomass can hardly be
compared to the zoocoenosis, which includes semaphoronts of very different
life histories, biology, and which undergoes continuous modification. The
heterotroph animal world can utilise the organic material provided by the
plants through a wide range of adaptations. These life forms extend from the
scale insects, spending most of their life anchored to a single location, to the
birds of high vagility - an astonishingly variable spectrum. This is sufficient
for us to resist the suggestion that the plant societies can be mimicked by
that of animals and, thus, to resist the application of the term association to
zoocoenology.
All members of a plant association perform a substantially identical
function. There is a smaller difference between a geophyte and a phanerophyte
than, for example, the larval vs. adult stage of the same individual insect.
Animal associations are formed by performing task-adapted activities to use
the energy produced by plants. This process is not substantiallydifferent from
that of the plants, as the absorption, transport and assimilation of nutrient
via plant roots is not too dissimilar to ingestion of nutrients by animals by
sucking, chewing, or by other means. However, these characteristic animal
activities, that precede food processing, are a core feature of both animal
associations and their constituent populations, and are manifested as an
antagonistic relationship between associations of plants and animals. This
antagonism is what underpins the formation and sustenance of animal
associations, as well as their clear separation from plant associations.
The animal assemblages cannot be identical across comparable plant
associations; their only common characteristic is that, in both, certain species
combinations are regularly repeated, so much so that we can assume that
they are not in coexistence through chance. However, an individual plant
(not the species), during its ontogenetic development, cannot visit various
associations, as is commonplace among animals and, indeed, essential for
some species. The plant association, beyond representing a sociological unit,