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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
