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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
