Kaszab Zoltán (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 63. (Budapest 1971)
Fekete, G. ; Szujkó-Lacza, J.: A survey of the plant life-form systems and the respective research approaches III. Rankiaer's life-form conception. The application of life-forms in the characterization of phytoclimate and in vegetation analysis
according to him, evolution of the given life-forms proceeded in the course of natural selection). This is why he contends that every life-form has its own ecology (e.g. independent light-climate). "The character of vegetation and the number of associations depend on the sort of habitats and their endowment by life-forms in the given area" (LIPPMAA 1946). Manifestly, the theory of synusia extended RAUNKIAER'S life-forms to a certain rate of groundlessness. The synusia, defined by the life-forms, can play only thus the role ascribed to them, namely that they are the bio-ecological and morphologico-structural elements of the community (cf. JAROSENKO, 1961). [At the same time, however, the discipline of synusia advanced vegetation studies with a methodical thoroughness by the exhaustive and multilateral investigation of the concomitantly occurring species (e.g.: "Asperula —Asaram —Lamium galeobdolon unio")]. 2. Liîe-îorm problems of the Zurich — Montpellier phylosociological school The Zürich — Montpellier school has rapidly assimilated RAUNKIAER'S lifeforms (and less the essence of the life-form concept) for the characterization of floristically considered associations. In the application of the life-forms, the original life-form concept was more or less modified (largely unsaid), as will be seen below. a. Life-forms and community-physiognomy (community-structure, community layers) According to BRAUN-BLANQUET (1951), the life-forms and the structure of communities are so much interrelated that their connection must be reflected also in the life-form spectrum by expressing the mass conditions of the life-forms represented in the several layers. CAIN & CASTRO (1959) have the same opinion. BRAUN — BLANQUET holds that, accordingly, the "true" importance of the Phanerophytes (but of also other life-forms) is accentuated only if stratification and, as its expression, life-form mass (see later) are also taken into account. This contention, however, as well as its justification (BRAUN —BLANQUET, I.e., p. 71: "Die Vegetationsschichtung vermittelt den Übergang zur Lebensformenbetrachtung, denn die einzelnen Vegetationsschichten gehören auch verschiedenen Lebensformenklassen an"), are liable to attack. On the one hand, more than one life-form can exist within one layer; on the other, the factors determining the mass conditions of the layers, as groups of aligned elements, are not primarily heat and water. BRAUN —BLANQUET (I.e.) himself writes: "Die charakteristische Schichtung der Pflanzengesellschaften ist das Ergebnis eines langdauernden Anpassungs- und Ausleseprozesses, wobei namentlich dem Lichtfaktor massgebende Bedeutung zukommt". The decisive property of the populations of the given species is therefore the way they have hereditarily adapted themselves to light, and in how far 1 they, as competitors in the given association, are able to assert this quality in the vertical subdividing of the available space. One of the criteria of the life-form is stature, but life-form is not unconditionally (only often) expressive of stature. It is not life-form (as adaptation) which enables plant species to constitute an association and to evolve therein a certain kind of order. (The final result of such an adaptation, namely stratification, can expediently characterized quantitatively by leaf morphological —leaf anatomical types reflecting light adaptation. Another approach of quantitative characterization may be made by the leaf area index).
