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48 | II. Biocoenosis and zoocoenosis
relationship to space. From this, it also follows that, if we look at an animal
assemblage from the viewpoint of a coenologist, the animals found there can
only be classified from the perspective of the four coeti; only ecofaunistics
can use distinctions like peregrinant, hospitant or protempore, because these
reflect the occurrence of certain species, and not their associative needs.
Therefore, any analysis that distinguishes these elements has, by necessity,
lapsed into a faunistical viewpoint, and cannot be considered zoocoenology.
Zoocoenology, thus, must be careful not to fall under the influence of
space, because this will alter the direction of research: instead of unearthing
the relationships of populations to each other, it will focus on the relationships
of populations to space. The latter is a question of distribution, i.e. faunistics,
and it does not matter that it examines the distribution of more than one
species; for example, instead of describing “lepidopteran fauna’, it uses the
term “lepidopteran association”.
Zoocoenology is concerned with space only to the degree that it relates to
the zoocoenosis. Its first question is not “what species live at the study site?”
but: which are the corrumpents or, more generally, the elements that depend
on plant material (also including sustinent and intercalary ones)? The next
question is not about their distribution either, but: how are these primary
transformants linked to populations representing the other structural
elements?
The question of distribution of some species can only be of zoocoenological
interest when the populations of the species in question inhabit a wide area,
in associations with different species spectra. This area can be rather large
(e.g. a species can occur over the whole of the Palearctic region), but the
zoocoenosis is more than a matter of occurrence and can be established
unequivocally, supported by numerous examples; within this continuous
area, the populations of the focal species will associate with sets of populations
comprising different species. The presence of a species does not form a
coenosis, and even a newly-introduced corrumpent or obstant element is
“only there” when it arrives, and is not yet “associated” with that coenosis. It
must, however, become associated - it can only survive in this new home if
its associative needs can be fulfilled, and if the existing biocoenosis can provide
these needs. This illustrates why a zoocoenosis is more than co-occurrence.
For the sake of simplicity, we will only mention insects when identifying
the elements of a zoocoenosis. This structural decomposition needs to be
tested using other animal groups, for example game, domesticated animals,
or birds.
When we consider these other groups of animals, the structure discussed
above does not need to change; they can easily be fitted into the same
framework and, for this reason, we believe we see the structure of zoocoenoses
as a reality.
There is no doubt that the large herbivorous “game” in a zoocoenosis fulfils
the role of corrumpents, and the importance of this role is positively related