Oldal 127 [127]
OCR
§ Oualitative characteristics | 125 the basis of morphological, onto- and tokogenetic information that is essential to delineate, unequivocally, the semaphoront groups. Species identification is not ranked below the synphysiological characteristics, but represents the next level in our increasing knowledge about the zoocoenosis, because the life forms do not fit together because we know the constituent species; to identify the semaphoront groups with confidence, we need to determine species identity. This identification serves only to connect our conclusions to a taxonomic entity and, this way, they can become a manageable aspect of the data, as well as part of the general zoological knowledge. From this perspective, the use of species names is an essential condition ofa proper coenological analysis. However, the species in zoocoenoses are represented by populations, and the coenological analysis has to deal with these populations, not abstract species. The population is the structural unit of a species (Gilyrov, 1954). The species is abstract, while the population is a reality, that connects to other populations, according to its coetus value. We must consider it an error if authors, again and again, lapse into an idiobiological view, and coenological characteristics get attributed to species, and not populations. Coenological characteristics can only be ascribed to populations and not to species, whose presence can fit into various associative frames within the area of distribution (for example, the larval population of a generalist ichneumonid parasitoid can be present, simultaneously, in several catenaria). Such relationships of a species are important for the overall knowledge about the species, but this is idiobiology; there are synbiological aspects, but these manifest themselves, in different ways, through the associated populations. Zoocoenology can only evaluate these populations, and not the species, because at a given place and time, we only encounter a population. A zoocoenosis can only be considered to really exist if such semaphoront groups permanently coexist, if this coexistence can be classified a community and, if this form of community can be repeatedly found. Consequently, there must be some sort of regularity in the zoocoenoses, that - above the structural identity - makes them distinguishable. These regularly-occurring characteristics can only be qualitative, and of two origins. One is the relationship of the semaphoront groups to the biotope and, the other, the links to the other semaphoront groups, i.e. to the coenological framework. Thus, are born the characteristics of constancy and fidelity. 5. Constancy Constancy in phytocoenology serves to assess how a plant species is distributed among the various stands of the same association and, considering its perceptual presence, establishes five degrees (Felféldy, 1943; S06 1945, 1953). Constancy in phytocoenology is a fully justified structural category, given
