sociation

1. (botany) A plant community.Examples: "While the lowest units of phytocoenoses, the sociations, are founded upon a relative homogeneity in all layers, most consociations are homogeneous only in one layer, and the higher units in no layer at all, being founded mainly upon the sociological affinity of the dominants of the layer arbitrarily chosen as the base for the classification (most of the highest of the layers represented)."; "In the classification, sociations are first distinguished by the dominant or constant species, or by a combination of them."countableuncountable

2. (ecology) The stable interactions and influences among the species within a coenose.Examples: "But as I chose to classify sociations, or rather associations in topographical terms, it was obviously necessary to separate the C. Bigelowii myri from the dry-ground sociations in which it is a dominant species."; "Therefore a comparative analysis and a classification of bog plant communities must be undertaken on the basis of sociations."countableuncountable

3. (sociology) Interactions and relationships among people.Examples: "Risk cultures lie in non-institutional and anti-institutional sociations."; "Sociation is neither the cause nor the consequence of society; it is society."; "Basically, this entailed the formal study of human interaction, including the ways in which this interaction generates institutions, hierarchies, and structures of subjectivity, in a word, various forms of sociation."countableuncountable