Biodiversity Information System for Europe - Ecosystems and habitats

Marine

2012-02-17T10:18:27Z

The marine territory covers 70% of earth surface and more than 50% of the territory of the EU. Europes land is surrounded by five sea basins: the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Baltic Sea, North Sea, and the North Atlantic Ocean.

Marine ecosystems are diverse: some are highly productive and all are important ecologically and economically to humankind. They provide numerous vital goods and services like food and chemicals and play crucial roles in biogeochemical processes sustaining the entire biosphere. Although the marine realm has less species than the terrestrial it has a greater phylogenetic diversity than land faunas and floras.

The main pressures on marine ecosystems are pollution, overexploitation of marine resource, climate change and acidification, sea uses and the introduction and spread of invasive alian species. The conservation assessment of marine habitats and species carried out in the context of the Habitats Directive showed that the overwhelming majority of features had to be assessed as ‘unknown’. Only for 2% of marine species and for 10% of marine habitats the conservation status assessments are witin the category ‘favourable conservation status’.

Compared to the terrestrial environment, there are serious delays in identifying marine areas needing protection and even greater delays in establishing their management. Under the EU Habitats and Birds Directive about 2000 sites had been proposed or classified, which are either fully or partly marine. Currently most of these sites are near-shore areas, whereas offshore areas are currently lacking. The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive specifies inter alia the designation of Marine Protected Areas as a means for Europe’s seas to achive ‘good environmental status’.

Further reading:

EEAs message on marine ecosystems
EU 2010 Biodiversity Baseline report
Progress towards the European 2010 biodiversity target
Results from the First Census of Marine Life
Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Report country profiles on target 3.1 and 3.2 - and community level

Selected links:

European Atlas of the Seas

EC Maritime affairs

EC Marine and Coasts

OSPAR Convention North East Atlantic Sea

HELCOM Helsinki Convention Baltic Sea

Barcelona Convention Mediterranean Sea

Bucharest Convention Black Sea

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)

WISE - Water quality in transitional, marine and coastal waters

Coastal

2012-03-27T15:40:15Z

The coastal zone is the environment which results from the coexistence of two margins: coastal land, defined as the terrestrial edge of continents; and coastal waters, defined as the littoral section of shelf areas (EEA, 2006). The terrestrial portion of the coastal zone is defined by an area extending 10 km landwards from the coastline. The marine part of the coastal zone is defined as a zone extending 10 km offshore (EEA, 2006).

According to the CBD 50% of the world’s population will live along coasts by 2015, putting unsustainable pressures on coastal resources. Compared with the other continents, Europe has a large continental shelf and a relatively long coastline in relation to its land area. Nearly half of the population of EU countries with a sea border is located in coastal regions (Eurostat, 2009).

Between 1990 and 2000, artificial surfaces in coastal zones increased in almost all European countries. The highest increase in artificial surfaces (20-35%) has been observed in the coastal zones of Portugal, Ireland and Spain. In 2000 the share of area covered by artificial surfaces was 25% higher on the coast than inland (EEA, 2006).

Coastal habitats are those above spring high tide limit (or above mean water level in non-tidal waters) occupying coastal features and characterised by their proximity to the sea, including coastal dunes and wooded coastal dunes, beaches and cliffs. (EUNIS habitats classification)

With regard to the focus on biodiversity aspects of coastal ecosystems those habitats which always occur along the coast including marshes, sea cliffs, intertidal habitats and coastal dunes are of special interest. In addition some marine habitats which always occur adjacent to the coast, such as large bays, have to be included as well.

From the 231 target habitats types of the Habitats Directive, 50 habitat types can be classified as coastal habitat types. Thereof only 8% are assessed as being in good conservation status, for 22% the conservation is even unknown and the majority (70%) is in unfavourable conservation status.

Around 130 species of European interest, namely those listed in the Annex of the EU Habitats Directive, are linked to coastal ecosystems. According to the current knowledge 16% of Reptiles and 20% of Mammals are threatened (IUCN European Red list). Only 11% of the coastal species have a favourable conservation status assessment, for 56% the conservation status is unfavourable.

Figures from the Biodiversity Baseline report:

Further reading:

EU 2010 Biodiversity Baseline report
EEAs message on coastal ecosystems
EU Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Report: country profiles on target 3.1 - and community level

Selected links:

Integrated Coastal Zone Management

EC Marine and Coasts

Life projects on coasts, seas and fisheries

WISE - water quality in transitional, marine and coastal waters

EEA coasts and seas homepage

EEA coasts and seas data service

Lakes, rivers and wetlands

2011-10-11T16:00:21Z

Wetlands as defined by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (RAMSAR) include lakes and rivers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands and peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas and tidal flats, near-shore marine areas, mangroves and coral reefs, and human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs, and salt pans.

Freshwater ecosystems in Europe are rich in biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem goods and services to humans.

Around 250 species of macrophytes and 250 species of fish inhabit European inland surface waters, and a significant number of birds and mammals depend on freshwater wetlands for breeding or feeding. River ecosystems are among the most species-rich in temperate regions due to to their naturally high habitat heterogeneity and connectivity. Wetlands are some of the planet’s most productive ecosystems. They provide spawning grounds for fish as well as feeding and breeding areas for many migratory birds.

Lakes, reservoirs, and other wetlands have an important function for river ecosystems by influencing water quality and quantity within the catchment area (EEA, 2009a). Rivers themselves transport water and sediments downstream, thus preventing flooding of adjacent settlements and infrastructure within their natural river beds, and providing the structural, and nutrition background for downstream freshwater habitats. Thus, freshwater ecosystems provide many important goods and services including the provision of food, clean water, building materials, and flood and erosion control (IUCN, 2008).

Information gathered as part of the reporting obligations under the EU Habitats Directive shows, that the conservation status of the wetland habitats types of European interest is unfavourable in 77% of the cases. The conservation status of rivers and lakes habitat types is unfavourable in 64% of the cases.

The conservation status of species of European interest related to wetlands as well as the conservation status related to rivers and lakes is unfavourable more than 60% of the cases.

Further reading:

the EU 2010 Biodiversity Baseline report
EEAs message on freshwater ecosystems
JRC report on Riparian zones
Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Report country profiles on target 2.3 - and community level

Selected links:

Heath and Scrubs

2011-10-11T16:00:21Z

In Europe, heathlands and shrublands have been coevolving for millennia with human societies. They are semi-natural ecosystems traditionally maintained by low to intermediate management or disturbance events and they represent a distinctive set of European habitats for their biodiversity and their aesthetic and cultural values (Wessel et al., 2004; Quétier et al., 2007 in Vandewalle et al., 2010). In the Iberian Peninsula they are particularly rich in plant species diversity and they hold a large number of endemic plants. Also birds, reptilians and ampibians are well represented (Wessel et al. 2004).

The majority of shrublands require management to conserver them. But often they lack appropriate conservation measures. In addition they are threatened by polluting aerial deposition, overgrazing, excessive wildfires, or size reduction or fragmentation; Climate change might make these ecosystems even more vulnearble. (Wessel et al. 2004).

From the 231 target habitats types of the Habitats Directive 36 belong to the group of heathlands and scrublands, which includes temperate and sclerophyllous, coastal and inland habitat types. The highest number (25) of these habitat types can be found in the Mediterranean Biogeographical Region, followed by the continental Biogeographical Region with 23.

While within the Alpine Region the conservation status of these group of habitats types is for 36% in the best category (favourable conservation status), none of the habitat types in the Atlantic or the Pannonian Biogeographical Region have been assessed as favourable. Also the Mediterranean Biogeographical Region has with only 8% of the habitats types of this group in the best category, while for 52 % the conservation status is unknown.

Ice, rock, polar

2011-10-11T16:00:21Z

Rock

This group includes sparsely vegetated habitats where the vegetation cover is usually low, typically less than 25% (although this depends on scale), such as cliffs and screes. Some grassland also belongs to this group (e.g. Serpentinophilous grassland of Cyprus).

From the habitats listed in the Annex of the EU Habitats Directive 23 habitat types are considered as “rocky” habitats. The conservation status for these habitat types has been assessed as favourable within 41% of all cases, 23% unfavourable inadequate and 17% unfavourable bad. In 19% of the cases the conservation status is unknown. For 156 species covered by the EU Habitats Directive, the rocky habitats are their preferred habitat. For these species the conservation status was assessed as favourable in a quarter of all cases, but for a large number 37% the conservation status is unkown.

Ice/Polar

High mountain zones and high latitude land masses occupied by glaciers or by perennial snow. They may be inhabited by algae and invertebrates.

This group includes permanent snow and ice. There is only one habitat type from Annex of the EU Habitats Directive within this group (8340 Permanent glaciers). The conservation status for this habitat type has been assessed as unfavourable bad. 14 species or subspecies listed covered by the EU Habitats Directive are linked to ice/polar ecosystems. For seven species the conservation status was assessed; 54 % of these are within the worst category (unfavourable bad).

selected links

Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF)

Soil Atlas of the Northern Circumpolar Region

Urban

2012-01-26T16:57:54Z

Europe is a highly urbanised continent; 80% of the population is expected to live in European cities by 2020 (EEA, 2009). With the settelements of human beings new habitats were created. Their characteristics manifest in increasingly extremes from farmbuildings and villages, suburban areas to urban centres.

The value of wildlife in cities is often underestimated. Nature in cities is not only a matter of cultivated and managed biodiversity such as urban parks, gardens, and lawns. Nowadays, urban wetlands, abandoned industrial sites, roadside verges, vacant lots and derelict lands, ruins, allotment gardens, cemeteries, are increasingly recognised as potential reservoirs of urban biodiversity together with arboreta, residential gardens and villas, botanic gardens, and individual balconies (Heywood, 1996).

As created ecosystems, cities have their own wildlife of particular urban species; species that occur also in the wider countryside, but in different numbers and composition than in urban areas, and with differing genetic diversity. This is a result of the complexity of urban ecosystems (Gilbert, 1989; Sukopp and Wittig, 1998; Sukopp, 2003; Lizet et al., 1999).

Urban sprawl, the urbanisation trend of expanding growth of cities into the wider countryside, is a major threat to biodiversity of the last decades in Europe. Urban sprawl is driven by a variety of interacting factors. This includes an increasing demand for building grounds due to demographic changes such as smaller households, new life styles of single family houses, segregation of income classes, inner city densification or abandonment as a consequence, and weak implementation of landscape planning (EEA, 2006).

Read EEAs message on urban ecosystems

Selected links

EC: Urban Environment

EEA Urban Environment homepage

EEA Urban Environment data service

Forest

2012-03-27T15:39:09Z

Forests: Land with tree crown cover (or equivalent stocking level) of more than 10 percent and area of more than 0.5 ha. The trees should be able to reach a minimum height of 5 m at maturity in situ. (UN-ECE/FAO, 2000)

Other wooded land (OWL): Land either with a tree crown cover (or equivalent stocking level) of 5-10 percent of trees able to reach a height of 5 m at maturity in situ; or a crown cover (or equivalent stocking level) of more than 10 percent of trees not able to reach a height of 5 m at maturity in situ and shrub or bush cover.

While 25% of the world’s forests are located in the 46 European countries participating in the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE), 80% of European forests occur in the Russian Federation (MCPFE, 2007). Regarding the 38 European countries which are member of or collaborating with the European Environment Agency (EEA), forests today cover 33 % of the land area, which corresponds to 185 million ha (EEA, 2008). In the 27 European Union countries, forests and other wooded land covered 177 million hectares, or 42% of the land area in 2005 (Eurostat, 2008).

Forests are the source of a wide range of services. In the EU27, 80% of biomass energy consumption comes from wood (EEA2008) and the forestry sector’s gross value added was estimated in 2005 at more than 100 billion from forestry, wood and paper industries (EEA2008).

Forests contribute to protect soils from erosion, regulate watersheds and local hydrological system by reducing variation in water flows. They also provide local, regional and global climate regulation, carbon storage, air and freshwater purification. Forests are important biodiversity repositories with the greatest assemblage of species found in any terrestrial ecosystem. Forest ecosystems also supply numerous social and cultural services.

As a result of various interacting pressures on forest ecosystems in Europe, species and habitats of European interest are threatened. Information gathered as part of the reporting obligations under the Habitats Directive (EC, 2009) show that the conservation status of species and habitats of European interest differs strongly between biogeographical regions in Europe, but altogether more than 50% of species and more than 60% of habitats are in unfavourable conditions. According to the current knowledge, 27 % of Mammals, 10 % of Reptiles and 8% of Amphibians, related to forests have been assessed by IUCN as threatened of extinction at EU level (ETC/BD source 2010, based on IUCN, 2009).

Figures from the Biodiversity Baseline report:

Further reading:

EU 2010 Biodiversity Baseline report
EEAs message on forest ecosystems
Progress towards the European biodiversity 2010 target
Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Report country profiles on target 2.1 - and community level

Selected links:

SEBI indicator on forest: growing stock, increment and fellings

SEBI indicator on forest: deadwood

DG Environment on forest

Green paper on forest protection

LIFE projects on forests

FOREST EUROPE Ministerial Conference on the protection of Forest in Europe

EFDAC European Forest Data Centre

FAO Forestry

EURFORGEN European Forest Genetic Resources Programme

Agro-ecosystems and grasslands

2012-04-12T15:56:50Z

With agriculture covering half of the EU’s land area, Europe’s biodiversity is to a large part inextricably linked to agricultural practices. Change in agricultural land use is a major cause for the decline of biodiversitiy in Europe (EEA 2009). This change is charactersised by widespread intensification of farming systems on better land and abondonment or afforestation of poorer land.

The mosaic of habitats resulting form traditional farm management favoured a diversity of plant animal species across Europe and it estimated that 50% of all species in Europe depend on agricultural habitats (Kristensen, 2003).

Likelihood of HNV Farmland presence at EU level, including the CORINE Land Cover (CLC) map for the year 2000 (JRC/EEA, 2008)

Whereas farmland under intensive production also supports a certain level of biodiversity, areas where farming practices are associated with high biodiversity value are qualified as High Nature Value (HNV) farmland. HNV farmland is characterised by a high proportion of semi-natural vegetation with a mosaic of low intensity agriculture and semi-natural structural elements (e.g. field margins, hedgerows, stone walls, patches of woodland or scrub, small rivers, etc.), as well as farmland which supports rare species or a high proportion of European or world populations. The estimated share of HNV farmland within the EU27 is about 32% (see Paracchini et. Al. 2008).

Many of the farmland habitats of high nature value depend on active management especially semi-natural grasslands. (see also grassland ecosystems).

Out of the 231 habitat types of European interest targeted by Annex I of the EU Habitats Directive, 63 depend on extensive agricultural practices or can benefit from them. For 50% of these habitat types the conservation status has been assessed as unfavourable bad.

For 27 species targeted by the EU Habitats Directive the preferred habitat types are associated with agro-ecosystems and they depend on a continuation of extensive agriculture. 30% of the conservation status assessments for these habitat types are within the category unfavourable bad and for 39% they are unfavourable inadequate.

read EEA's message on agro-ecosystems

Figures from the Biodiversity Baseline report:

Grassland ecosystems

Grassland ecosystems are dominated by grasses and include meadows, steppes, grasslands grazed with a variable intensity.

European grasslands are among the most species-rich vegetation types (up to 80 plant species/m2) in Europe and have great conservation value (Eriksson et al., 2002; Poschlod and WallisDeVries, 2002; WallisDeVries et al., 2002 in Vandewalle et al., 2010).

Annex I of the Habitats Directive lists 45 grassland and meadow habitats from different types: natural, semi-natural, calcareous, dry, mesophile and humid; this reflects the high diversity of grasslands and the fact that most of them have been modified, created or maintained by agricultural activities. Only 5% of grasslands of European interest are in favourable status, whereas 76 % are in unfavourable status.

According to the latest conservation status assessment published by Birdlife International 89 of the 152 grassland bird species (i.e. 59%) have an unfavourable conservation status in Europe. A number of the species which became threatened over the last decade in Europe include some formerly common ones (Tucker and Heath, 1994 in Veen et al., 2009).

Europe’s grassland butterflies have declined by 60% since 1990 and this reduction shows no sign yet of levelling off (EEA, 2009).

Near 235 species which are covered by the EU Habitats Directive are linked to grassland ecosystems. According to the current knowledge, 28 % of Amphibians, 12 % of Reptiles and 16 % of Mammals are threatened of extinction at EU level. More than 50 % of grassland related species of European interest are in unfavourable status

Further reading

EU 2010 Biodiversity Baseline report
Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Report country profiles on target 2.1 - and community level

Selected links

SEBI indicator on agriculture: area under management practices potentially supporting biodiversity

Agriculture and rual development

FAO

OECD Agriculture and Fisheries

EUROSTAT Agricultural Statistics

LIFE projects on grasslands, scrublands and bogs

Mountains

2011-10-11T16:00:21Z

Mountains are characterised by a wide natural and cultural variety. According to the CBD, they cover about 27% of the world’s land surface and provide the freshwater needs of more than half of humanity. Mountains support about one quarter of world’s terrestrial biodiversity and include nearly half of the world’s biodiversity “hotspots”. Of the 20 plant species that supply 80% of the world’s food, six originated in mountains.

Although only 3% of Europe’s total area is covered by mountain environments above the tree line, they host 20% of its native vascular plant species: more than 2,500 species and subspecies are estimated to be found in the alpine flora, which are confined to or predominantly occurring above the treeline. The proportion varies from less than 0.5% of the total flora in Corsica of species restricted to the alpine zone to about 17% in the Alps (Nagy et al., 2003).

Species endemism, in particular, often increases with altitude within mountain regions, partly due to the isolation of populations and speciation processes over geological time scales (Nagy et al. 2003) . For example, the Caucasus Ecoregion has the highest level of endemism in the temperate world, with over 6,500 vascular plant species, at least 25% of which are unique to the region (Wilson, 2006).

Mountain ecosystems are fragile and vulnerable to changes due to their particular and extreme climatic and biogeographic conditions. The main pressures on mountain biodiversity in the Alpine region are caused by changes in land use practices, infrastructure development, unsustainable tourism, overexploitation of natural resources, fragmentation of habitats, and climate change (EEA, 2002).

Read also EEAs message on mountain ecosystems and
Europe's ecological backbone: recognising the true value of mountains

Selected links

The alpine convention

The carpathian convention

Islands

2011-10-11T16:00:21Z

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, islands are defined as “lands isolated by surrounding water and with a high proportion of coast to hinterland”; it stipulates that they must be populated, separated from the mainland by a distance of at least two kilometres, and measure between 0.15 km² and the size of Greenland (2.2 mio km²).

In relation to biodiversity, islands are unique places that are home to variety of species and habitats including endemic as well as threatened biodiversity. Endemism is a feature of many islands. From a global biodiversity perspective islands are therefore considered as biodiversity ‘hot spots’. They provide for the livelihood, economy, well-being and cultural identity of 600 million island dwelling people (one-tenth of world population). Island species are also unique in their vulnerability: of the 724 recorded animal extinctions in the last 400 years, about half were island species.

The characteristics of the species assemblages found on islands are determined by many factors, including size, age, distance to other islands and the mainland, climatic history, current climate, relief and

geology. Thus, although as a general rule islands are poorer in species than comparable mainland areas (Whittaker and Palacios, 2007), their biodiversity often exhibits unique features and a high degree of endemism, from the

genetic to the ecosystem level. Although islands make up only some 5 % of the global land area, their endemic biota are estimated to include about 20 % of the world’s vascular plant species and 15 % of all mammal, bird and amphibian species.

Islands harbour numerous discrete ecosystems, from mountain forests to wetlands and beyond, that provide services in the form of food, fresh water, wood, fibre, medicines, fuel, tools and other important raw materials, in addition to aesthetic, spiritual, educational and recreational values, that support island livelihoods, economies and cultures. Island ecosystems also contribute to the maintenance of ecosystem functions: they provide defence against natural disasters, support nutrient cycling, and soil and sand formation; and they contribute to the regulation of climate and diseases.

Over the past century, island biodiversity has been subject to intense pressure from invasive alien species, habitat change and over-exploitation and, increasingly, from climate change and pollution. These challenges and vulnerabilities prompted Agenda 21(1992), followed by the Barbados Programme of Action (1994) and the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002), to call small island developing States and islands supporting small communities “a special case both for environment and development.”

The impacts of climate change are particularly relevant in the island context and include sea level rise and the possibility of increasing incidence of (already problematic) invasive alien species. Measures available to support the adaptation of biodiversity to climate change for its long-term preservation are similar to those recommended for other areas.

According to the draft recommendations for parties on biodiversity and climate change (CoE, 2010) priority attention Mediterranean and Macaronesian region should be given to islands in the both because of their high endemism and because of expected changes in precipitation patterns and, within these islands, to endemic species which are already considered threatened. Further efforts in monitoring and research are recommended. Several European countries are entirely situated on islands and, except for a small number of landlocked states, almost all countries have islands within their territories. Endemism in European islands is largely concentrated on islands in the Mediterranean and Macaronesian regions.

further reading: Climate change and the biodiversity of European islands (Council of Europe)

Selected links:

Global Island Partnership (GLISPA)

Global Islands Network (GIN)

Global Islands database