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III. BIOTOPE AND ANIMAL ASSOCIATIONS
§ THE CONCEPT OF BIOTOPE
The animal association has been distinguished from the plant members of
the biocoenosis, and their links were also pointed out. However, animal
associations exist, without doubt, and can be classified into categories, because
the repeating species combinations in well identified biotopes indicate, not
only, that the animals filling a certain area (ad hoc faunal representation) are
characteristically different from the surrounding ones, but also that these
associations have limits. Every coenological study verifies their existence.
Thus, we have to ask: how can we draw the borders of a zoocoenosis, and
whether the drawing of such a line is possible at all?
This guestion of delimitation meets the problem of whether biocoenoses
should be delimited structurally or spatially, and whether it is conceivable
that these two factors would coincide.
Before answering, we must examine the spatial aspects of a zoocoenosis:
how can we synthesise the structure, the characteristic species composition
of an animal community with its spatial boundaries?
In this regard, we have to agree with Balogh (1946, 1953), who finds it
unjustified that the guestion of the biotope is more important than that of
the biocoenosis. Schwenke (1953) goes to the other extreme, considering the
biotope as merely a spatial component of the biocoenosis, and declares that
the two are identical on the basis that, without life, there is no biotope, and
as the biotope is defined by its biocoenosis, there is no need for both terms.
This guestion remains undecided to this day. Several authors (Hesse, 1924;
Friederichs, 1930; Palmgren, 1930; Krogerus, 1932; Dudich, 1939; Nagy, 1944;
Tischler, 1950; Bej-Bienko, see Scsegolev, 1951; Rabeler, 1952) define and use
the term “biotope” largely as we do below. For others, the biotope is not
mentioned at all, or only in passing (Balogh, 1946, 1953), and is mixed with
the biocoenosis; Schwenke (1953) consciously merges the two.
According to us, the question is not so simple, and the fact that the
interaction of biotope and biocoenosis is very close is no justification that
the two terms be considered identical.
The biotope is not determined by its biological association, as the latter
only reflects the conditions in the former. The biological association is only
the external, easily visible, sign of the set of conditions operating in the