Page 157 [157]
VIII. Agrobiocoenoses and their zoocoenoses | 155
would not exist, nor cultivated plants, and there would be no salt grasslands,
nor fishponds, on the former flood beds. Under human influence, biotopes
change but remain biotopes, and the biocoenosis can respond naturally, but
it also remains a biocoenosis, with producents and along with all the other
elements that are able to find their favourable life conditions. People keeping
animals also grow plants, not only for themselves but also for their animals,
and they use areas (biotopes) that are formed spontaneously. A zoocoenosis
is formed around humans - a supersocion that includes, apart from humans,
all populations that, whether corrumpents, obstants or intercalary elements,
in their current life forms, depend on humans. This supersocion has a
profound influence on all culture-biotopes. Rammner does not define these
assemblages of organisms that populate the cultivated areas. Our attempt is
that the only natural explanation is that the Hominicion sapientis has a
property, and it includes everything that displays a human influence, whether
exerted directly, or via domesticated animals. We cannot agree with
Thienemann (1950) either (“man as an overarching organisational factor’,
p. 734), because, despite enormous mental powers, humans are still subject
to the basic laws of nature and, so far, have been unable to change this. The
Hominicion sapientis is not independent of the other elements of the
biocoenosis; it is dependent, conclusively, on its sustinents and intercalary
elements and, in the arvideserta, conflicts with Arvicolaecion arvalis - a
struggle that must be won, to avoid an irreparable damage to its food base.
The view that places humans outside nature also led Schwerdtfeger (1956)
to use the terms “biocoenoid” and “technocoenosis” to denote landscapes
under human influence, denying their biocoenosis rank. We cannot see any
structural difference between the two, and consider an ant hill, or termite
mound, as much a phenomenon of nature as the cities of populations of
Homo sapiens, which are their “habitat”.
This step of declaring humans an organic component of biocoenoses may
seem daring, or foolhardy, but it follows, unavoidably, from Linneaus’s view
that classified Homo sapiens as a species of primate.
This does not touch upon the mental superiority of humans, their social
laws, their relationship to religion, science and art; yet their organismal needs
link them to the totality of the biocoenosis, which they can modify according
to their needs but cannot change its structure without endangering their own
existence. Without a biocoenosis, cities equipped with all the achievements
of civilisation could not be established, nor survive, and this biocoenosis puts
its stamp on several aspects of the culture itself.
From this perspective, in culture-biocoenoses, it is impossible to see
anything that differs, substantially, from biocoenoses where human influence
is minimal. Production, the essence of biocoenoses, is undisturbed in
agrobiocoenoses, which is confirmed, aptly, by the existence of a stable food
base, that serves as an existential condition for humankind. Certain animal
communities have unhindered access to these plant stands, which is reflected