Page 114 [114]
OCR
112 ÍVI. Methods of a zoocoenological analysis There is a lack of a synthesis of these foundations in zoocoenology, but if agrozoocoenology did not attempt this exercise, it undermines its reason for existence. Our opinion is that all three need to be utilised when we want to characterise a zoocoenosis; the three together provide the coenological characteristics, the first is the gualitative, the secondguantitative, and the third, structural. Zoocoenology as it has been practiced so far, and in part continues to do, is largely synmorphology, restricting itself to the description of qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The available coenological measures are, in essence, limited to these factors, perhaps because, to a large degree, these were adopted from phytocoenology in the belief that they are also sufficient for uncovering the structure and composition of zoocoenoses. However, these characteristics are not sufficient for a full representation of animal communities and, due to the substantial differences between plant and animal communities, this is not even possible. There are signs in the literature of the desire to also consider the synphysiological spectrum during the analysis of zoocoenoses, mainly in the attempt to group the populations of zoocoenoses into trophic or life form groups (Elton, 1927; Balogh, 1946; Balogh and Loksa, 1948; Tischler, 1949, 1951; Franz, 1950; Dudich, Balogh and Loksa, 1952). The above-mentioned trio of characteristics involve certain sequential stages. The first step is, obviously, the description of the species spectrum, the identification of the species identity of the constituting populations, followed - and often accompanied by the measurement of the quantitative relationships; while the synphysiological spectrum clarifies the roles filled by the individual populations, considering the trophic relationships and other interactions. Certain authors assume that, in a zoocoenosis, the dominant populations play the decisive role and believe that the study of interactions must start with these populations (Schwenke, 1953). We cannot be so sure about this without clarifying the relationships and, thus, we claim that all research must be performed without prejudice, and by looking at the whole zoocoenosis. It is self-evident that the dominant populations occupy the focus of our attention, given that dominance itself is a characteristic that can be explained by synphysiological factors. The aim of a zoocoenological analysis is the study of the zoocoenosis, that is, of the associative categories, and not the spatial relationships of the individual populations. A given community is not a community because of its relationship to a habitat area or volume, but because its constituent populations are connected through trophic links. Due to the spatial constraints of energy resources that are also linked, indirectly, to an area, any spatiallylimited coenological study is constrained; it represents a “window’, through which we try to examine a zoocoenological category, but not the zoocoenosis itself. We can only compare populations that belong to the same associative category; therefore, the coenological categories are associative, and not faunistic, characteristics.
