,
Boreal,
Atlantic,
Continental,
Alpine,
Pannonian,
Mediterranean,
Macaronesian,
Steppic,
Black Sea and
Anatolian 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). A clearly distinct area is also the
Macaronesian Biogeographic Region. The North Sea is home to about 230 species of fish.
Cod,
haddock,
whiting,
saithe,
plaice,
sole,
mackerel,
herring,
pouting,
sprat, and
sandeel are common and target of commercial fishing. Due to the various depths of the North Sea trenches and differences in salinity, temperature, and water movement some fish reside only in small areas of the North Sea (e.g.
blue-mouth redfish,
rabbitfish). Of crustaceans,
Norway lobster, and deep-water
prawns and
brown shrimp are commercially fished. The coasts provide breeding
habitat for dozens of bird species. Tens of millions of birds make use of the North Sea for breeding, feeding, or migratory stopovers every year. Populations of
northern fulmars,
black-legged kittiwakes,
Atlantic puffins,
northern gannets,
razorbills, and a variety of species of
petrels,
seaducks,
loons,
cormorants,
gulls,
auks, and
terns, and other seabirds make these coasts popular for
birdwatching. The low salinity of the
Baltic Sea has led to the evolution of many slightly divergent species, such as the Baltic Sea
herring, which is a smaller variant of the Atlantic herring. The most frequent
benthic species are
Saduria entomon and
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
freshwater ecoregions, including the heavily developed
rivers of Europe, the
rivers of Russia, which flow into the Arctic, Baltic, Black, and Caspian seas. There are about 15,000 known European freshwater animal species.
Arctic tundra Arctic tundra is the northernmost (and coldest) of European habitats, in extreme northern Scandinavia,
Svalbard archipelago, northernmost part of 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.
Iceland is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean with very scarce land fauna. The only native land
mammal when humans arrived was the Arctic fox. There are no native
reptiles or
amphibians on the island, but a rich marine fauna live in the ocean waters around it.
Forests Eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the
Arctic Ocean. Though over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of
deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest, such as the
boreal forests of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed
rainforests of the Caucasus and the
cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both
broadleaf and
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
Eurasian Steppe is the term often used to describe the vast
steppe ecoregion of
Eurasia stretching from the western borders of the steppes of
Hungary to the eastern border of the steppes of
Mongolia. Most of the Euro-Asian Steppe is included within the region of
Central Asia while only a small part of it is included within
Eastern Europe (the steppes of western
Russia,
Ukraine and
Pannonian Plain - see
Pontic–Caspian steppe). Characteristic are some small mammals (
golden jackal,
voles,
European ground squirrel,
Russian desman among others).
Alpine regions The mountain regions have peculiar fauna relatively little influenced by human activities. The northernmost are the
Scandinavian Mountains.
Pyrenees present many instances of endemism. The
Pyrenean desman is found only in some of the streams of the northern slopes of these mountains,
Pyrenean brook salamander also lives in streams and lakes located at high altitudes. Among the other peculiarities of the Pyrenean fauna are blind insects in the caverns of
Ariège (
Anophthalmus,
Adelops). The
Pyrenean ibex mysteriously became extinct in 2000; the native Pyrenean
brown bear was hunted to near-extinction in the 1990s but was re-introduced in 1996. Some common animals of the
Alps are
Alpine ibex,
Alpine marmot,
Tengmalm's owl and
ptarmigan. The
Apennine Mountains provide habitat to
Marsican brown bear and 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.
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. 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==