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OCR
§ Synphysiological characteristics | 145 The two definitions clearly mirror the difficulties, currently unresolvable, that stand in the way of clarifying these characteristics. To measure the transformatum of a given unit of area or volume, not even considering the measurement error, is open to serious inaccuracies when we try to assess larger areas. Given the large and uneven dispersion of populations, and their irregular distribution, several authors (such as Kuehnelt, 1950) justly warn against measurement on an exaggerated scale. This difficulty becomes even more acute when we attempt to calculate gravitas, because this is a relative characteristic, and has to be related to data that, themselves, stand on unreliable foundations. We would like to point out a few additional considerations. A bigger body mass does not necessarily mean higher food consumption because, to truly assess this, we need to know the assimilation efficiency as well. A great many animals hibernate, for shorter or longer periods. Such a population can hardly be compared to others, whose members remain fully active during the period of study. Once we extend our attention to such aspects, the question of transformatum becomes devilishly complicated. The correct answer, especially for populations with two or more coetus values gets lost in the labyrinth of pre- and supersocia, and the transformatum of populations undergoing a change of coetus, or biotope that may originate from a totally different biotope and/or zoocoenosis. Based on the above, we have to conclude that both the transformatum and the gravitas are characteristics that merit our attention, and that can prove very useful to unearth surprising relationships — at a more advanced level of zoocoenological study, after removing the methodological difficulties. Currently, however, they do not belong to the group of essential coenological characteristics. Ultimately, studies of biomass consider living material, and the attention of production biology is directed towards species representations that contain the largest mass of living material, as these are the principal nodes of manifestations of life. Zoocoenology is concerned, chiefly, with the forms of living material, and how these life forms are grouped along the massive flow of energy. The quantitative nature of this question is undeniable, yet it is even more certain that it is, firstly, a qualitative one. These are such fine nuances of animal associations that they cannot be approached by the major, not to say crude, methods of mass relations. Parasitology, for example, provides ample examples to indicate that a “small” mass can substantially disturb a much greater mass, and at the physiological level (Kotlan 1953). This would hardly be evaluated appropriately as a matter of mass relations, as the essence of the problem cannot be approached by this route. For this reason, the zoocoenological importance of characteristics of mass relations need to be re-evaluated and, therefore, we expanded the quantitative characteristics with the qualitative concepts of degrees of corrumpency, or of obstancy.
