User:Kaarel/sandbox/Fauna of Europe

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Blue tit
is a widespread and common resident breeder of Europe

Fauna of Europe are all the animals living in

temperate region, (north of the equator) the wildlife is not as rich as in warmer regions, but nevertheless diverse due to the variety of habitats and the faunal richness of the Eurasia
as a whole.


Origins of European fauna

The formation of the European fauna began in the Mesozoic with the splitting of 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.

Northern hemisphere glaciation during the last ice age

. 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

predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Tree species spread outward from refugia during interglacial periods, but in varied patterns, with different trees dominating in different periods[2]. Insects, on the other hand, shifted their ranges with the climate, maintaining consistency in species for the most part throughout the period (Coope 1994). Their high degree of mobility allowed them to move as the glaciers advanced or retreated, maintaining a constant habitat despite the climatic oscillations. Mammals recolonized at varying rates. Brown bears, for instance, moved quickly from refugia with the receding glaciers, becoming one of the first large mammals to recolonize the land[3]
. The last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago, resulting in the present distribution of ecoregions.

See also

List of extinct animals of Europe
.

Zoogeographic regions

Atlantic Ocean

The north-eastern Atlantic Ocean may be divided into two main biogeographic regions - the

Baltic sea)[4]. A clearly distinct area is also the Macaronesian
islands region.

The

Norway lobster, and deep-water prawns and brown shrimp
are commercially fished. The coasts provide breeding
seaducks, loons, cormorants, gulls, auks, and terns, and other seabirds make these coasts popular for birdwatching.[5]
The Baltic Sea is an ecological island, isolated from other
brackish
seas by both land and fully marine seas
Monoporeia affinis, which is originally a freshwater species. A great part of its bottom is anoxic
and without animal life.

The Baltic sea and North Sea are also home to a variety of marine mammals (

Common seals, grey seals
).

Freshwater

Europe contains several important

Rivers of Russia, which flow into the Arctic, Baltic, Black, and Caspian seas. There are about 15,000 European freshwater known animal species[8]
.

Biogeographic regions of Europe (including Asian part of Turkey)

Arctic tundra

Arctic tundra is the northernmost (and coldest) of European habitats, in northern Scandinavia and northern Russia. Some typical animals include reindeer, arctic fox, brown bear, ermine, lemmings, partridges, snowy owl and many insects. Most tundra animals undergo hibernation
during the colder season.

Forests

Eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the

Cork oak
forests in the western Mediterranean. In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both
coniferous
trees dominate. The cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat has caused major disruptions to the original animal ecosystems, and only few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time.

Grasslands

The

Russian Desman
among others).

Alpine regions

The mountain regions have peculiar fauna relatively little influenced by human activities. The northernmost are the

Brown Bear
was hunted to near-extinction in the 1990s but was re-introduced in 1996. Some common animals of the
Italian Wolf. The Carpathian Mountains are a range of mountains forming an arc of roughly 1,500 km across Central and Eastern Europe and are inhabited by the largest populations in Europe of brown bears, wolves and lynxes, as well as Chamois
and other animals.

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 ihas no distinctive characteristics and is relatively poor. Both are a result of events after the

Mediterranean Monk Seal
) are critically endangered.

Invertebrates

Arianta arbustorum

About 100,000 invertebrate species (including insects) are known from Europe[11]. The marine species richness is greatest in the Mediterranean with 600

Cnidarians[12]
.

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)

oligochaetes
.

The

European crayfish
) and many others are present. The number of spider species in Europe counts to 4113[14]. Scorpions are mainly found in southern parts of Europe (Euscorpius, Belisarius, Iurus)[15].

Insects

Small Tortoiseshell

There are about 300

ladybird beetles, 5000 rove beetles and 5000 weevils
).

About 600 species of butterflies and about 8000 species of moths live in Europe. An estimated 18% of all European butterfly species are considered to be vulnerable to or imminently faced with extinction [17].

Fishes

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

Jawless fishes (Brook lamprey, River lamprey, Sea lamprey), Sharks, Sturgeons
eastern Europe, .. The common
Carp bream and others - more than 50% of the freshwater fish species belong to this order[19]), Catfishes (Wels catfish and less common Aristotle catfish), the Northern pike[20]
.

Amphibians

There live 75 species of

Common Midwife Toad, 10 Mediterranean species) live in Europe[21]
. For a complete list, see
List of European amphibians
.

Reptiles

European green lizard

The European

Mediterranean House Gecko
)

Among the seven species of native

Greek Tortoise
. See also
List of European reptiles
.

Birds

Mute Swan

The list of European

birds is about 800 species long[16] (445 of them breeding in Europe[22]
). One bird family, the
Palaearctic region. The Holarctic has four other endemic bird families: the divers or loons (Gaviidae), grouse (Tetraoninae), auks (Alcidae), and waxwings
(Bombycillidae). Besides these, European fauna contains 9 species of geese, (
Common Sandpiper, Redshank and Lapwing
.

Chaffinch

About half of the European birds are

Coal Tit)[23]

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 [24].

See also:

Endemic birds of the Western Palearctic
.

Mammals

European mammal fauna consists of 270 species, 78 of them endemic to Europe[18] (15% of them are threatened with extinction and 27% have been identified as declining[25]). There are no endemic mammal orders in the region.

West European Hedgehog

There live about 25 species

Common Noctule
. The rodents include several
European Hare
.

Roe deer, a common European ungulate

Widespread and locally common ungulates are

Wisent, Chamois and Argali
. Today the larger
Barbary Macaque[26]
. See also
List of European mammals
.

Human 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 biodiversity loss are changes in natural habitats due to intensive agricultural production, construction and extractive industries, over exploitation of habitats and invasions and introductions of alien species.

American Mink
.

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)[27]. 15% of the

Carpathians (Retezat National Park
). The coasts of the North Sea are home to
Danube delta is the second largest delta in Europe, (after the Volga delta) and the best preserved on the continent. The Camargue Nature Reserve is another important delta nature reserve. Doñana National Park
is a national park and wildlife refuge in southwestern Spain.

Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the

European Community as well as non-European states. The European Union has adopted the ambitious target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010[28]
.

See also

External links

  • European Commission’s DG Environment [1]
  • Fauna Europaea[2]
  • The European Register of Marine Species[3]
  • European Limnofauna[4]

References

  1. ^ Z.S.Varga, T.Schmitt, Types of oreal and oreotundral disjunctions in the western Palearctic. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 93, 415–430
  2. ^ Taberlet, P.; R. Cheddadi 2002. Quaternary Refugia and Persistence of Biodiversity (In Science's Compass; Perspectives). Science, New Series 297:5589:2009-2010
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ M.D.Spalding et al., Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas, BioScience Vol.57 No.7, 2007
  5. ^ a b "OSPAR Quality Status Report for the Greater North Sea" (PDF), OSPAR, 2000, retrieved 2007-12-21
  6. ^ "Factors affecting the distribution Of North Sea fish" (PDF), International council for the Exploration of the Sea ICES, retrieved 2007-12-9 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ ETI CD-ROM European Limnofauna (Visser and Veldhuijzen van Zanten, 2000)
  9. ^ Sondaar, P.Y. Insularity and its affect on mammal evolution. In Major Patterns in Vertebrate Evolution (M.K. Hecht, R.C. Goody and B.M.Hecht, eds) New York, Plenum (1977)
  10. ^ C.C.Emig, P.Geistdoerfer, The Mediterranean deep-sea fauna: historical evolution, bathymetric variations and geographical changes, Carnets de Géologie / Notebooks on Geology, 2004
  11. ^ Wieringa, K. (ed.) 1995. Environment in the European Union 1995: Report for the Review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme. European Environment Agency / EUROSTAT
  12. ^ http://www2.minambiente.it/Sito/Settori_azione/scn/CHM/eng/fauna.htm
  13. ^ R.Giannuzzi-Savelli et al.; Atlas of the Mediterranean Sea Shells, Edizioni di "La Conchiglia", Roma, 1997
  14. ^ Platnick, N. I. (2007). The World Spider Catalogue- Version 8.0
  15. ^ G.A.Polis, The Biology of Scorpions, Stanford University Press (1990)
  16. ^ a b http://www.faunaeur.org
  17. ^ Heath, J., Threatened Rhopalocera (Butterflies) in Europe. Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 1981
  18. ^ a b c Ch.Lévêque, J.-C. Mounolou, Biodiversity, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2003
  19. ^ Y.Reyjol et al., Patterns in species richness and endemism of European freshwater fish, Global Ecology and Biogeography 16 (1) , 65–75
  20. ^ Kottelat, M. & J. Freyhof, Handbook of European Freshwater Fishes (2007)
  21. ^ http://www.globalamphibians.org
  22. ^ Hagemeijer, W.J.M. & Blair, M.J. (1997) The EBCC atlas of European breeding birds, their distribution and abundance. Poyser, London
  23. ^ B.Bruun, A.Singer. The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe, Hamlyn 1972
  24. ^ M.Begon et al.,Ecology - From Individuals to Ecosystems, Wiley-Blackwell (2006) pp.169
  25. ^ Temple, H.J. and Terry, A. (Compilers). 2007. The Status and Distribution of European Mammals. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities
  26. ^ 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)
  27. ^ http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/index_en.htm
  28. ^ European Union. (2001) Presidency Conclusions, Göteborg European Summit 15–16 June 2001.
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