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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
