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36 | II. Biocoenosis and zoocoenosis
In the light of this precise question, the association or, more generally, the
plant cover, loses its taxonomically-tainted guise, and becomes something
more tangible: the energy source for animals, and a determinant of factors
that provide living conditions (see Dudich, 1939; Nagy, 1944, 1947, 1950;
Park, in Alee et al., 1949).
What we cannot agree with, in the current practice of zoocoenology, is
that - irrespective of starting from plant or animal associations, and focusing
on dominance relations - it is always only the fauna that is analysed, and
that co-occurrence is deemed a sufficient condition for declaring a community.
Hence, not even posing the question of other community criteria; copying
the approach of plant sociology, the co-occurrence is considered sufficient
to declare a zoocoenosis.
There is no doubt that there is a tight relationship between plant cover
and the fauna, which is categorically important for the latter, although it can
be positive for plants, too, and for a group of plants, essential. If the plants
are essential for the animal world as an indispensable energy source, at least
one layer must be directly based on plants, thus providing the possibility of
the existence of further trophic levels. Given that plants rarely exist in isolation,
and form associations, the smallest category of zoocoenoses must have links
with plant associations and, in many cases, the existence ofa plant association
cannot be envisaged in the absence of an insect assemblage.
Plant sociology has intimate links with zoocoenology only through this
intersection; the plant cover that provides food anchors the producent trophic
level, the animal world secures the subsequent consument levels. The existence
of plant associations necessitates the formation of animal associations, too.
In this relationship, however, the host plant is the primary factor, not the
association.
§ THE CONCEPT OF ANIMAL ASSOCIATION
To correctly interpret the concept of animal association in relation to an
animal assemblage, we need to scrutinise the concept of the former - what
is the criterion hat entitles us to declare that the collected animals, even if
numerous, constitute not a random assemblage, but that they are held together
by certain rules, that allows us to call it an association?
We can only answer this question correctly if we view these assemblages
not as static ones, but examine their formation and development, i.e. analyse
their dynamics. The question that we need to pose in all cases is: what does,
in the study area, underpin the dominance of the population in question
among the other coexisting populations? The literature indicates that this
question can be answered by establishing the degree of dominance; from a
coenological viewpoint, only the most populous populations merit attention.
This reply, however, even if some populations are indeed dominant in certain