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94 | IV. Categories of animal associations
associations, apart from the relationship to energy sources, because it is
impossible that the highest level associative categories could exist without
the presocia. Vertebrates belong to these highest categories, and constitute
the zoocoenological unit of the supersocion.
This associative category can be distinguished from the others by the
following criteria. Their corrumpent elements rely on extensive plant stands,
and the relevant obstant and intercalary elements are also related to this
factor. The large area influences the density of populations, although this is
very variable; in the case of populations with high vagility (deer, hare, crows)
density can be low, but in populations with low vagility (ground squirrel,
field vole, etc.), it can reach very high values. Among the obstant and
intercalary elements, there can be large vertebrates and tiny invertebrates;
the density of the former is lower than that of corrumpent macro-members
(fox), while the latter can be very high (ticks).
Ihe catena in a supersocion cannot always be traced back to one corrumpent.
The populations of the field vole, ground squirrel and hamster, being
dependent on the same energy source, are members of the same supersocion;
the mole, however, even though being obstant, is not associated with these,
because its energy source is derived from numerous soil-living invertebrates.
The mole, consequently, does not associate with one or more corrumpents,
but to the whole presocium, in the same way as the hedgehog or the shrew.
Therefore, these animals occupy a position above populations of smaller
animals of high density, above presocia that are related to whole habitats, in
a quasi-singular position, and even where one of their populations is dispersed
over a large area.
This associational category, extending above a whole presocium, is the
supersocion. This is not only a category for macrofauna, as both vertebrates
and invertebrates appear in its food webs. Their separation is justified not
only by their relationship to space and time, but also their different
morphological and evolutionary features.
Considering these features, it is unimaginable that populations of deer,
great tit or woodpecker could have appeared without the previous appearance
of plant cover + invertebrate mesofauna, i.e. the formation of presocia.
Likewise, it is impossible that space occupied by vertebrate populations would
lack micro- and mesofauna. When these animal life forms appeared during
the evolutionary process, presocia must have existed and, probably, also
catenae and catenaria. If we consider specialisation as a higher degree of
development (Heikertinger, 1951; Mazochin-Porsnjakov, 1954), then, at least,
presocia must have existed before life forms displayed by terrestrial vertebrates,
could have evolved. As the existence of supersocia presupposes the existence
of presocia, the two contact along a broad front. The supersocion is a higher
associative category, following from its evolutionary superiority; it does not
unite presocia, but food chains that are attached to presocia “at the edges”.
For a supersocion, the energy source is represented by a whole biotope, with