Fauna of Europe
The fauna of Europe is all the animals living in Europe and its surrounding seas and islands. Europe is the western part of the
Before the arrival of humans European fauna was more diverse and widespread than today. The European megafauna of today is much reduced from its former numbers. The Holocene extinction drastically reduced numbers and distribution of megafauna and continues to (such as with wolves and bears). Many of these species still exist in smaller numbers, while others thrive in the developed continent free from natural predators, with the former threatened by human activity (particularly megafaunal species).
Origins of European fauna
The formation of the European fauna began in the Mesozoic with the splitting of the Laurasian supercontinent and was eventually separated from both North America and Asia in the Eocene. During the early Cenozoic, the continents approached their present configuration, Europe experienced periods of land connection to North America via Greenland, resulting in colonization by North American animals. In these times, higher sea levels sometimes fragmented Europe into island subcontinents. As time passed, sea levels fell, with seas retreating from the plains of western Russia, establishing the modern connection to Asia (Priabonian). Asian animal species then colonized Europe in large numbers, and many endemic European lineages (e.g. primates) died out ("grande coupure").
The cyclic changes of the Pleistocene between cold and warm periods resulted in antagonistic responses within two different groups of organisms: one expanding during the warm periods and retracting during the cold phases and another with opposed responses (the latter group is composed of so-called arctic and alpine species).[1]
Glaciation during the most recent
See also
Zoogeographic regions
Atlantic Ocean
The north-eastern Atlantic Ocean may be divided into two main biogeographic regions - the Lusitanian (west of British Isles, Bay of Biscay, Iberian coast as far as Gibraltar), and northern European seas (including North Sea and Baltic Sea).[4] A clearly distinct area is also the Macaronesian Biogeographic Region.
The North Sea is home to about 230 species of fish.
The Baltic Sea is an ecological island, isolated from other
The Baltic Sea and North Sea are also home to a variety of marine mammals (
Freshwater
Europe contains several important
Arctic tundra
Forests
Eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Grasslands
The
Alpine regions
The mountain regions have peculiar fauna relatively little influenced by human activities. The northernmost are the
Mediterranean
Formerly the region was mostly covered with forests and woodlands, but heavy human use has reduced much of the region to the sclerophyll shrublands known as chaparral, matorral, maquis, or garrigue. The loss of native forests had significant impact on biodiversity, with some 90% of the endemic mammalian genera of the Mediterranean becoming extinct after the development of agriculture.[9] Conservation International has designated the Mediterranean basin as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots.
As to the marine fauna, there are strong affinities and relationships between Mediterranean and Atlantic faunas. The deep-water fauna of the Mediterranean has no distinctive characteristics and is relatively poor. Both are a result of events after the Messinian salinity crisis.[10] An invasion of Indian Ocean species has begun via the Suez Canal (see Lessepsian migration). Many species, (such as the Mediterranean monk seal) are critically endangered.
Invertebrates
About 100,000 invertebrate species (including insects) are known from Europe.
There are about 1500 species of non-marine molluscs in Europe. The marine fauna is again richest in the Mediterranean region (2000 marine mollusc species).[13] 22 species and 3 subspecies of gastropods are extinct in Europe since the year 1500.[14] No species of bivalves are known to be extinct in Europe since 1500.[14]
The
Insects
There are about 300
About 600 species of
Fish
Europe has 344 fresh-water fish species, about 200 of them endemic. Some 277 fish species have been introduced to Europe, and over one-third of Europe's current fish fauna is composed of introduced species,
Amphibians
There live 75 species of
Reptiles
The European
Among the seven species of native
Birds
The list of European
About half of the European birds are
Of the 589 species of birds (excluding seabirds) that breed in the Palearctic, 40% spend the winter elsewhere. Of those species that leave for the winter, 98% travel south to Africa.[25]
Mammals
European mammal fauna consists of 270 species, 78 of them endemic to Europe[19] (15% of them are threatened with extinction and 27% have been identified as declining).[26] There are no endemic mammal orders in the region.
There live about 25 species
Widespread and locally common
. Today the largerHuman impact and conservation
Having lived side by side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. The main causes of
With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks. There are over 26,000 protected areas in the European Union covering a total area of around 850.000 km2 (more than 20% of total EU territory; see also Natura 2000).[30] 15% of the Alps are protected in
Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the
See also
References
- .
- ^ Taberlet, P.; R. Cheddadi 2002. "Quaternary Refugia and Persistence of Biodiversity" (In Science's Compass; Perspectives). Science, New Series 297:5589:2009-2010
- ^ Sommer, R. S.; N. Benecke. 2005. "The recolonization of Europe by brown bears Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758 after the Last Glacial Maximum". Mammal Review 35:2:156-164
- ^ M.D. Spalding et al., "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas", BioScience Vol.57 No.7, 2007
- ^ a b "OSPAR Quality Status Report for the Greater North Sea" (PDF), OSPAR, 2000, archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-02-16, retrieved 2007-12-21
- ^ "Factors affecting the distribution Of North Sea fish" (PDF), International council for the Exploration of the Sea ICES, archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-02-16, retrieved 2007-12-09
- ^ E.Leppäloski, "Living in a sea of exotics – the Baltic case". (in: Aquatic Invasions in the Black, Caspian, and Mediterranean Seas, ed. H.Dumont et al.) Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004
- ^ ETI CD-ROM European Limnofauna (Visser and Veldhuijzen van Zanten, 2000)
- ^ Sondaar, P.Y. Insularity and its effect on mammal evolution. In Major Patterns in Vertebrate Evolution (M.K. Hecht, R.C. Goody and B.M.Hecht, eds) New York, Plenum (1977)
- ^ Emig C.C. & Geistdoerfer P. (2004). The Mediterranean deep-sea fauna: historical evolution, bathymetric variations and geographical changes. Carnets de Géologie / Notebooks on Geology.
- ^ Wieringa, K. (ed.) 1995. Environment in the European Union 1995: Report for the Review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme. European Environment Agency / EUROSTAT
- ^ "Portale Italiano della Biodiversità". Archived from the original on 2006-04-15. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
- ^ Giannuzzi-Savelli R. et al. (1997). Atlas of the Mediterranean Sea Shells. Edizioni di "La Conchiglia", Roma.
- ^ .
- ^ Platnick, N. I. (2007). The World Spider Catalogue- Version 8.0
- ^ G.A.Polis, The Biology of Scorpions, Stanford University Press (1990)
- ^ a b Fauna Europaea : Name Search
- ^ Heath, J., Threatened Rhopalocera (Butterflies) in Europe. Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 1981
- ^ a b c Ch. Lévêque, J.-C. Mounolou, Biodiversity, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2003
- ^ Reyjol Y. et al. "Patterns in species richness and endemism of European freshwater fish". Global Ecology and Biogeography 16(1): 65–75.
- ^ Kottelat M. & Freyhof J. (2007). Handbook of European Freshwater Fishes.
- ^ "Global Amphibian Assessment". Archived from the original on 2011-04-12. Retrieved 2008-03-17.
- ^ Hagemeijer, W.J.M. & Blair, M.J. (1997) The EBCC atlas of European breeding birds, their distribution and abundance. Poyser, London
- ^ Bruun B. & Singer A. (1972). The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe. Hamlyn.
- ^ Begon M. et al. (2006). Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems, Wiley-Blackwell, 169 pp.
- ^ Temple H.J. & Terry A. (Compilers). (2007). The Status and Distribution of European Mammals. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
- ^ "Eurasian Wolf - Facts, Size, Diet & Habitat Information". Animal Corner. Retrieved 2016-02-10.
- ^ A. J. Mitchell-Jones (Ed.), G. Amori (Ed.), W. Bogdanowicz (Ed.), B. Krystufek (Ed.), P. Reijnders (Ed.), The Atlas of European Mammals. T. & A. D. Poyser Ltd. (1999)
- ^ Hogan C. M. (2008). Barbary Macaque: Macaca sylvanus, Globaltwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg Archived April 19, 2012, at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Environment - Nature & Biodiversity
- ^ European Union. (2001) Presidency Conclusions, Göteborg European Summit 15–16 June 2001.