Population – Structural and Functional Basic Element of Bioceonosis and Species. The Role of Population in the Knowledge of Species Autecology

Abstract

Every species exists in nature only as one or more populations. They may be investigated in different ways by biologists and by ecologists (in ecology a special branch deals with population ecology – autecology).

To study the ecology of an individual species does not mean to study autecological peculiarities of a single population, but of a multitude of populations within the areal of respective species, searching intrapopulational and interpopulational relationships, their relations to the abiotic environment and the manner of their participation to processes of production, transfer, consumption and decomposition of biomass and necromass, as well as the specificity of energy transfer.

The aim and the role of autecological investigations are highlighted, and the place of this branch among the other fields of ecology. It may be best realized using intensely the mathematical processing of the data.