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§ The smallest category of a zoocoenosis: the catena | 83
To name a catena, we should always use the name of the corrumpent,
sustinent or herbivorous intercalary element from which the catena in focus
originates. This rank frame should be denoted by using the genitivus of the
genus name and adding the end ofthe word catena to it; the species name is
also in genitivus. The above-mentioned catena used as an example would,
therefore, become: Ceutorrhynchitena maculae-albae, Eurybiaetena cardui
and Biorrhizaetena pallidae. The use of these names covers all the populations
included in the catena that are linked as stable elements to the corrumpent
living in each place, biotope or oecus. The catena (never forgetting that we
are dealing with populations, and not species) does not mean the circle of
parasites, predators and detritivores linked to the progeny of a female
corrumpent, but the whole population living in the given oecus or biotope.
It is not a catena that lives on a single poppy plant but certain semaphoront
groups; the whole catena is formed by the whole poppy seed head and weevil
populations living on all the poppy plants of a poppy field, and the totality
of detritivore and predator populations linked to these.
Therefore, a catena can include a huge mass of animals and the relationships
of the structural elements and, within these, the individual populations can
only be clarified by appropriate study methods. A catena, therefore, can
extend to a whole oecus or biotope, although not necessarily. It can occur
that, on a given portion of a poppy field of several hectares, certain obstant
elements, that are not present elsewhere, associate themselves into the
Timaspiditena papveris catena. Two Timaspiditans catenae will, therefore, be
different, and will form two facies of the same catena. The same facies¬
difference may exist between the species combination of Timaspiditena in
the Carpathian highlands and that of the Transdanubium.
Catenae can originate from three types of elements: corrumpents, sustinents,
and intercalary elements living on plant debris. Obstants will, necessarily, be
attached to all three elements (the only way the catena be formed), plus
occasional intercalary elements living on animal food that are not always
present. To form a catena, at least two operative elements have to meet.
Between these two structural elements there is a tight interaction that is
reflected in population dynamics: the host population allows the attachment
of obstant elements, and its abundance will have a feedback effect on the
others dynamics, and the other element will also influence the density of the
host population. The catena includes the obstant elements of the second and
third levels. The catenae are, therefore, the most independent, and the most
tightly interacting frames of the zoocoenoses. They are independent of each
other and do not assume each other’s existence (except in the case of
syrmatophagous intercalary catenae that appear on plants killed by corrumpent
elements), but can mutually influence each other’s species spectra.
For example, in the wheat field oecus, there are no catena members of the
Cephitena pygmaei that could also be involved in the Oscinellaetena frit or
in the Chloropiditena pumilionis catena, even if these occupy the same oecus,