Natural values in Europe




View of Gran Sasso, natural value of the Apennine Mountains in Italy


Natural values include various objects of nature that surround us, people: various landscapes; structures like mountains, hills, cliffs, large stones, caves, bodies of water, coastal areas, sand dunes, forests, meadows, bogs etc. They also include plants and animals, and their habitats, many of which are endangered in Europe today.

As nature in Europe has been influenced by man over millennia, so-called semi-natural areas now cover large areas of this continent. Several plant and animal species have adapted to live in this environment, and some even prefer to live in habitats influenced by humans.

In urban areas places with plant cover represent semi-natural areas. These include forest, parks, meadows, yards, ruins, avenues, hedges, bodies of water and their shores etc. All these habitat types are home for certain species of animals and plants, among them protected species like amphibians, reptiles, birds and bats.

Bats in towns:


Europe, Biodiversity

Having lived side-by-side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks.

The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east-west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south-north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards the sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.

In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east-west tongue of Eurasian grassland (the steppe) extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.



Floristic regions of Europe and neighbouring areas, according to Wolfgang Frey and Rainer Lösch


Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction.

Among carnivores European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, shrews, bats, different species of reptiles (like snakes such as vipers and grass snakes) and amphibians, different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey) live in Europe.

Important European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among others.

Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales.

Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe's Bern Convention, which has also been signed by the European Community as well as non-European states.



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