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.
More
about nature & biodiversity in Europe
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