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The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The realm consists of several bioregions, variously spanning the Euro-Siberian region; the Mediterranean Basin; North Africa; North Arabia; and Western, Central and East Asia. The Palaearctic realm also has numerous rivers and lakes, forming several freshwater ecoregions.
Both the eastern and westernmost extremes of the Paleartic span into the Western Hemisphere, including Cape Dezhnyov in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug the to the east and Iceland to the west. The term was first used in the 19th century, and is still in use as the basis for zoogeographic classification.
History
In an 1858 paper for the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, British zoologist Philip Sclater first identified six terrestrial zoogeographic realms of the world: Palaearctic, Aethiopian/Afrotropic, Indian/Indomalayan, Australasian, Nearctic, and Neotropical. The six indicated general groupings of fauna, based on shared biogeography and large-scale geographic barriers to migration.
Alfred Wallace adopted Sclater's scheme for his book The Geographical Distribution of Animals, published in 1876. This is the same scheme that persists today, with relatively minor revisions, and the addition of two more realms: Oceania and the Antarctic realm.
Major ecological regions
The Palearctic realm includes mostly boreal/subarctic-climate and temperate-climate ecoregions, which run across Eurasia from western Europe to the Bering Sea.
Euro-Siberian region
The boreal and temperate Euro-Siberian region is the Palearctic's largest biogeographic region, which transitions from tundra in the northern reaches of Russia and Scandinavia to the vast taiga, the boreal coniferous forests which run across the continent. South of the taiga are a belt of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and temperate coniferous forests. This vast Euro-Siberian region is characterized by many shared plant and animal species, and has many affinities with the temperate and boreal regions of the Nearctic realm of North America. Eurasia and North America were often connected by the Bering land bridge, and have very similar mammal and bird fauna, with many Eurasian species having moved into North America, and fewer North American species having moved into Eurasia. Many zoologists consider the Palearctic and Nearctic to be a single Holarctic realm. The Palearctic and Nearctic also share many plant species, which botanists call the Arcto-Tertiary Geoflora.
Mediterranean Basin
The lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea in southern Europe, north Africa, and western Asia are home to the Mediterranean Basin ecoregions, which together constitute the world's largest and most diverse mediterranean climate region of the world, with generally mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. The Mediterranean basin's mosaic of Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub are home to 13,000 endemic species. The Mediterranean basin is also one of the world's most endangered biogeographic regions; only 4% of the region's original vegetation remains, and human activities, including overgrazing, deforestation, and conversion of lands for pasture, agriculture, and urbanization, have degraded much of the region. 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. Conservation International has designated the Mediterranean basin as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots.
Sahara and Arabian deserts
A great belt of deserts, including the Atlantic coastal desert, Sahara Desert, and Arabian Desert, separates the Palearctic and Afrotropic ecoregions. This scheme includes these desert ecoregions in the palearctic realm; other biogeographers identify the realm boundary as the transition zone between the desert ecoregions and the Mediterranean basin ecoregions to the north, which places the deserts in the Afrotropic, while others place the boundary through the middle of the desert.
Western and Central Asia
The Caucasus mountains, which run between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, are a particularly rich mix of coniferous, broadleaf, and mixed forests, and include the temperate rain forests of the Euxine-Colchic deciduous forests ecoregion.
Central Asia and the Iranian plateau are home to dry steppe grasslands and desert basins, with montane forests, woodlands, and grasslands in the region's high mountains and plateaux. In southern Asia the boundary of the Palearctic is largely altitudinal. The middle altitude foothills of the Himalaya between about 2,000–2,500 m (6,600–8,200 ft) form the boundary between the Palearctic and Indomalaya ecoregions.
East Asia
China, Korea and Japan are more humid and temperate than adjacent Siberia and Central Asia, and are home to rich temperate coniferous, broadleaf, and mixed forests, which are now mostly limited to mountainous areas, as the densely populated lowlands and river basins have been converted to intensive agricultural and urban use. East Asia was not much affected by glaciation in the ice ages, and retained 96 percent of Pliocene[citation needed] tree genera, while Europe retained only 27 percent. In the subtropical region of southern China and southern edge of the Himalayas, the Palearctic temperate forests transition to the subtropical and tropical forests of Indomalaya, creating a rich and diverse mix of plant and animal species. The mountains of southwest China are also designated as a biodiversity hotspot. In Southeastern Asia, high mountain ranges form tongues of Palearctic flora and fauna in northern Indochina and southern China. Isolated small outposts (sky islands) occur as far south as central Myanmar (on Nat Ma Taung, 3,050 m; 10,010 ft), northernmost Vietnam (on Fan Si Pan, 3,140 m; 10,300 ft) and the high mountains of Taiwan.
Freshwater
The realm contains several important freshwater ecoregions as well, including the heavily developed rivers of Europe, the rivers of Russia, which flow into the Arctic, Baltic, Black, and Caspian seas, Siberia's Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake on the planet, and Japan's ancient Lake Biwa.
Flora and fauna
One bird family, the accentors (Prunellidae), is endemic to the Palearctic region. The Holarctic has four other endemic bird families: the divers or loons (Gaviidae), grouse (Tetraoninae), auks (Alcidae), and waxwings (Bombycillidae).
There are no endemic mammal orders in the region, but several families are endemic: Calomyscidae (mouse-like hamsters), Prolagidae, and Ailuridae (red pandas). Several mammal species originated in the Palearctic and spread to the Nearctic during the Ice Age, including the brown bear (Ursus arctos, known in North America as the grizzly), red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Europe and the closely related elk (Cervus canadensis) in far eastern Siberia, American bison (Bison bison), and reindeer (Rangifer tarandus, known in North America as the caribou).
Megafaunal extinctions
Several large Palearctic animals became extinct from the end of the Pleistocene into historic times, including Irish elk (Megaloceros giganteus), aurochs (Bos primigenius), woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), North African elephant (Loxodonta africana pharaoensis), Chinese elephant (Elephas maximus rubridens), cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), Straight tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) and European lion (Panthera leo europaea).
Palearctic terrestrial ecoregions
| Guizhou Plateau broadleaf and mixed forests | China |
| Yunnan Plateau subtropical evergreen forests | China |
| Palearctic temperate broadleaf and mixed forests | |
|---|---|
| Apennine deciduous montane forests | Italy |
| Atlantic mixed forests | Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands |
| Azores temperate mixed forests | Portugal |
| Balkan mixed forests | Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Turkey |
| Baltic mixed forests | Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden |
| Cantabrian mixed forests | France, Portugal, Spain |
| Caspian Hyrcanian mixed forests | Azerbaijan, Iran |
| Caucasus mixed forests | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia, Turkey |
| Celtic broadleaf forests | Ireland, United Kingdom |
| Central Anatolian deciduous forests | Turkey |
| Central China loess plateau mixed forests | China |
| Central European mixed forests | Austria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine |
| Central Korean deciduous forests | North Korea, South Korea |
| Changbai Mountains mixed forests | China, North Korea |
| Changjiang Plain evergreen forests | China |
| Crimean Submediterranean forest complex | Russia, Ukraine |
| Daba Mountains evergreen forests | China |
| Dinaric Mountains mixed forests | Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia |
| East European forest steppe | Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine |
| Eastern Anatolian deciduous forests | Turkey |
| English Lowlands beech forests | United Kingdom |
| Euxine–Colchic deciduous forests | Bulgaria, Georgia, Turkey |
| Hokkaido deciduous forests | Japan |
| Huang He Plain mixed forests | China |
| Madeira evergreen forests | Portugal |
| Manchurian mixed forests | China, North Korea, Russia, South Korea |
| Nihonkai evergreen forests | Japan |
| Nihonkai montane deciduous forests | Japan |
| North Atlantic moist mixed forests | Ireland, United Kingdom (Northern Ireland, Scotland), Denmark (Faroe Islands) |
| Northeast China Plain deciduous forests | China |
| Pannonian mixed forests | Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine |
| Po Basin mixed forests | Italy Switzerland |
| Pyrenees conifer and mixed forests | Andorra, France, Spain |
| Qin Ling Mountains deciduous forests | China |
| Rodope montane mixed forests | Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Serbia |
| Sarmatic mixed forests | Belarus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia, Sweden |
| Sichuan Basin evergreen broadleaf forests | China |
| South Sakhalin–Kurile mixed forests | Russia |
| Southern Korea evergreen forests | South Korea |
| Taiheiyo evergreen forests | Japan |
| Taiheiyo montane deciduous forests | Japan |
| Tarim Basin deciduous forests and steppe | China |
| Ussuri broadleaf and mixed forests | Russia |
| West Siberian broadleaf and mixed forests | Russia |
| Western European broadleaf forests | Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Luxembourg. Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland |
| Zagros Mountains forest steppe | Iran, Iraq, Turkey |
| Alps conifer and mixed forests | Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland |
| Altai montane forest and forest steppe | China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia |
| Caledon conifer forests | United Kingdom |
| Carpathian montane conifer forests | Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine |
| Da Hinggan–Dzhagdy Mountains conifer forests | China, Russia |
| East Afghan montane conifer forests | Afghanistan, Pakistan |
| Elburz Range forest steppe | Iran |
| Helanshan montane conifer forests | China |
| Hengduan Mountains subalpine conifer forests | China |
| Hokkaido montane conifer forests | Japan |
| Honshū alpine conifer forests | Japan |
| Khangai Mountains conifer forests | Mongolia |
| Mediterranean conifer and mixed forests | Algeria, Morocco, Spain, Tunisia |
| Northeastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests | China, India, Bhutan |
| Northern Anatolian conifer and deciduous forests | Turkey |
| Nujiang Langcang Gorge alpine conifer and mixed forests | China |
| Qilian Mountains conifer forests | China |
| Qionglai–Minshan conifer forests | China |
| Sayan montane conifer forests | Mongolia, Russia |
| Scandinavian coastal conifer forests | Norway |
| Tian Shan montane conifer forests | China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan |
| East Siberian taiga | Russia |
| Iceland boreal birch forests and alpine tundra | Iceland |
| Kamchatka–Kurile meadows and sparse forests | Russia |
| Kamchatka–Kurile taiga | Russia |
| Northeast Siberian taiga | Russia |
| Okhotsk–Manchurian taiga | Russia |
| Sakhalin Island taiga | Russia |
| Scandinavian and Russian taiga | Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden |
| Trans-Baikal conifer forests | Mongolia, Russia |
| Urals montane tundra and taiga | Russia |
| West Siberian taiga | Russia |
| Alai–Western Tian Shan steppe | Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan |
| Altai steppe and semi-desert | Kazakhstan |
| Central Anatolian steppe | Turkey |
| Daurian forest steppe | China, Mongolia, Russia |
| Eastern Anatolian montane steppe | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey |
| Emin Valley steppe | China, Kazakhstan |
| Faroe Islands boreal grasslands | Faroe Islands, Denmark |
| Gissaro–Alai open woodlands | Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan |
| Kazakh forest steppe | Kazakhstan, Russia |
| Kazakh steppe | Kazakhstan, Russia |
| Kazakh Uplands | Kazakhstan |
| Mongolian–Manchurian grassland | China, Mongolia, Russia |
| Pontic steppe | Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria |
| Sayan Intermontane steppe | Russia |
| Selenge–Orkhon forest steppe | Mongolia, Russia |
| South Siberian forest steppe | Russia |
| Syrian xeric grasslands and shrublands | Iraq, Jordan, Syria |
| Tian Shan foothill arid steppe | China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan |
| Amur meadow steppe | China, Russia |
| Bohai Sea saline meadow | China |
| Nenjiang River grassland | China |
| Nile Delta flooded savanna | Egypt |
| Saharan halophytics | Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Tunisia, Western Sahara |
| Tigris–Euphrates alluvial salt marsh | Iraq, Iran |
| Ussuri-Wusuli meadow and forest meadow | China, Russia |
| Yellow Sea saline meadow | China |
| Altai alpine meadow and tundra | China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia |
| Central Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe | China |
| Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows | Bhutan, Myanmar, China, India, Nepal |
| Ghorat–Hazarajat alpine meadow | Afghanistan |
| Hindu Kush alpine meadow | Afghanistan |
| Karakoram–West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe | Afghanistan, China, India, Pakistan |
| Khangai Mountains alpine meadow | Mongolia |
| Kopet Dag woodlands and forest steppe | Iran, Turkmenistan |
| Kuh Rud and Eastern Iran montane woodlands | Iran |
| Mediterranean High Atlas juniper steppe | Morocco |
| North Tibetan Plateau–Kunlun Mountains alpine desert | China |
| Northwestern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows | China, India, Pakistan |
| Ordos Plateau steppe | China |
| Pamir alpine desert and tundra | Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan |
| Qilian Mountains subalpine meadows | China |
| Sayan alpine meadows and tundra | Mongolia, Russia |
| Southeast Tibet shrub and meadows | China |
| Sulaiman Range alpine meadows | Afghanistan, Pakistan |
| Tian Shan montane steppe and meadows | China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan |
| Tibetan Plateau alpine shrublands and meadows | China |
| Western Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows | India, Nepal |
| Yarlung Zambo arid steppe | China |
| Arctic desert | Russia, Svalbard (Norway) |
| Bering tundra | Russia |
| Cherskii–Kolyma mountain tundra | Russia |
| Chukchi Peninsula tundra | Russia |
| Kamchatka Mountain tundra and forest tundra | Russia |
| Kola Peninsula tundra | Norway, Russia |
| Northeast Siberian coastal tundra | Russia |
| Northwest Russian–Novaya Zemlya tundra | Russia |
| New Siberian Islands arctic desert | Russia |
| Scandinavian montane birch forest and grasslands | Finland, Norway, Sweden |
| Taimyr–Central Siberian tundra | Russia |
| Trans-Baikal Bald Mountain tundra | Russia |
| Wrangel Island arctic desert | Russia |
| Yamalagydanskaja tundra | Russia |
| Aegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests | Greece, North Macedonia, Turkey |
| Anatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests | Turkey |
| Canary Islands dry woodlands and forests | Spain |
| Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests | France |
| Crete Mediterranean forests | Greece |
| Cyprus Mediterranean forests | Cyprus |
| Eastern Mediterranean conifer–sclerophyllous–broadleaf forests | Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey |
| Iberian conifer forests | Spain |
| Iberian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests | Portugal, Spain |
| Illyrian deciduous forests | Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Slovenia |
| Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests | France, Italy |
| Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets | Morocco, Canary Islands (Spain) |
| Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe | Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia |
| Mediterranean woodlands and forests | Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia |
| Northeastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests | France, Monaco, Spain |
| Northwest Iberian montane forests | Portugal, Spain |
| Pindus Mountains mixed forests | Albania, Greece, North Macedonia |
| South Apennine mixed montane forests | Italy |
| Southeastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands | Spain |
| Southern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests | Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey |
| Southwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests | Portugal, Spain |
| Tyrrhenian–Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests | Croatia, France, Italy, Malta |
| Palearctic deserts and xeric shrublands | |
|---|---|
| Afghan Mountains semi-desert | Afghanistan |
| Alashan Plateau semi-desert | China, Mongolia |
| Arabian Desert | Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Yemen |
| Atlantic coastal desert | Mauritania, Western Sahara |
| Azerbaijan shrub desert and steppe | Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran |
| Badghyz and Karabil semi-desert | Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan |
| Baluchistan xeric woodlands | Afghanistan, Pakistan |
| Caspian lowland desert | Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan |
| Central Afghan Mountains xeric woodlands | Afghanistan |
| Central Asian northern desert | Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan |
| Central Asian riparian woodlands | Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan |
| Central Asian southern desert | Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan |
| Central Persian desert basins | Afghanistan, Iran |
| Eastern Gobi desert steppe | China, Mongolia |
| Gobi Lakes Valley desert steppe | Mongolia |
| Great Lakes Basin desert steppe | Mongolia, Russia |
| Junggar Basin semi-desert | China, Mongolia |
| Kazakh semi-desert | Kazakhstan |
| Kopet Dag semi-desert | Iran, Turkmenistan |
| Mesopotamian shrub desert | Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Syria |
| North Saharan steppe and woodlands | Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara |
| Paropamisus xeric woodlands | Afghanistan |
| Persian Gulf desert and semi-desert | Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates |
| Qaidam Basin semi-desert | China |
| Red Sea coastal desert | Egypt, Sudan |
| Red Sea Nubo–Sindian tropical desert and semi-desert | Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen |
| Registan–North Pakistan sandy desert | Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan |
| Sahara desert | Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Niger, Sudan, Western Sahara |
| South Iran Nubo–Sindian desert and semi-desert | Iran, Iraq, Pakistan |
| South Saharan steppe and woodlands | Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan |
| Taklimakan desert | China |
| Tibesti–Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands | Chad, Egypt, Libya, Sudan |
| West Saharan montane xeric woodlands | Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, Niger |
References
- Sclater, Philip Lutley (1858). "On the general geographical distribution of the members of the class Aves". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 2 (7): 130–145. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1858.tb02549.x.
- Olson, D. M., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E. D., Burgess, N. D., Powell, G. V. N., Underwood, E. C., D'Amico, J. A., Itoua, I., Strand, H. E., Morrison, J. C., Loucks, C. J., Allnutt, T. F., Ricketts, T. H., Kura, Y., Lamoreux, J. F., Wettengel, W. W., Hedao, P., Kassem, K. R. (2001). Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on Earth. Bioscience 51(11):933–938, [1] Archived 2012-09-17 at the Wayback Machine.
- Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545 [2]
General references
- Amorosi, T. "Contributions to the zooarchaeology of Iceland: some preliminary notes" in The Anthropology of Iceland (eds. E.P. Durrenberger & G. Pálsson). Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, pp. 203–227, 1989.
- Buckland, P.C., et al. "Holt in Eyjafjasveit, Iceland: a paleoecological study of the impact of Landnám" in Acta Archaeologica 61: pp. 252–271. 1991.
- http://www.Merriam-Webster.com
- http://www.Canadianbiodiversity.mcgill.ca
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/ecozones/Palearctic_ecozone
- Edmund Burke III, "The Transformation of the middle Eastern Environment, 1500 B.C.E.–2000 C.E." in The Environment and World History, ed. Edmund Burke III and Kenneth Pomeranz. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2009, 82–84.
External links
![image]()
Media from Commons![image]()
Travel information from Wikivoyage
- Avionary 1500 Bird species of the Western and Central Palaearctic in 46 languages
- Map of the ecozones
This article includes a list of general references but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations May 2015 Learn how and when to remove this message The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth the largest of eight Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere it stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas and North Africa The Palearctic realm in red The realm consists of several bioregions variously spanning the Euro Siberian region the Mediterranean Basin North Africa North Arabia and Western Central and East Asia The Palaearctic realm also has numerous rivers and lakes forming several freshwater ecoregions Both the eastern and westernmost extremes of the Paleartic span into the Western Hemisphere including Cape Dezhnyov in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug the to the east and Iceland to the west The term was first used in the 19th century and is still in use as the basis for zoogeographic classification HistoryIn an 1858 paper for the Proceedings of the Linnean Society British zoologist Philip Sclater first identified six terrestrial zoogeographic realms of the world Palaearctic Aethiopian Afrotropic Indian Indomalayan Australasian Nearctic and Neotropical The six indicated general groupings of fauna based on shared biogeography and large scale geographic barriers to migration Frontispiece to Alfred Russel Wallace s book The Geographical Distribution of Animals Alfred Wallace adopted Sclater s scheme for his book The Geographical Distribution of Animals published in 1876 This is the same scheme that persists today with relatively minor revisions and the addition of two more realms Oceania and the Antarctic realm Major ecological regionsThe Palearctic realm includes mostly boreal subarctic climate and temperate climate ecoregions which run across Eurasia from western Europe to the Bering Sea Euro Siberian region The boreal and temperate Euro Siberian region is the Palearctic s largest biogeographic region which transitions from tundra in the northern reaches of Russia and Scandinavia to the vast taiga the boreal coniferous forests which run across the continent South of the taiga are a belt of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and temperate coniferous forests This vast Euro Siberian region is characterized by many shared plant and animal species and has many affinities with the temperate and boreal regions of the Nearctic realm of North America Eurasia and North America were often connected by the Bering land bridge and have very similar mammal and bird fauna with many Eurasian species having moved into North America and fewer North American species having moved into Eurasia Many zoologists consider the Palearctic and Nearctic to be a single Holarctic realm The Palearctic and Nearctic also share many plant species which botanists call the Arcto Tertiary Geoflora Mediterranean Basin The lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea in southern Europe north Africa and western Asia are home to the Mediterranean Basin ecoregions which together constitute the world s largest and most diverse mediterranean climate region of the world with generally mild rainy winters and hot dry summers The Mediterranean basin s mosaic of Mediterranean forests woodlands and scrub are home to 13 000 endemic species The Mediterranean basin is also one of the world s most endangered biogeographic regions only 4 of the region s original vegetation remains and human activities including overgrazing deforestation and conversion of lands for pasture agriculture and urbanization have degraded much of the region 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 Conservation International has designated the Mediterranean basin as one of the world s biodiversity hotspots Sahara and Arabian deserts A great belt of deserts including the Atlantic coastal desert Sahara Desert and Arabian Desert separates the Palearctic and Afrotropic ecoregions This scheme includes these desert ecoregions in the palearctic realm other biogeographers identify the realm boundary as the transition zone between the desert ecoregions and the Mediterranean basin ecoregions to the north which places the deserts in the Afrotropic while others place the boundary through the middle of the desert Western and Central Asia The Caucasus mountains which run between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea are a particularly rich mix of coniferous broadleaf and mixed forests and include the temperate rain forests of the Euxine Colchic deciduous forests ecoregion Central Asia and the Iranian plateau are home to dry steppe grasslands and desert basins with montane forests woodlands and grasslands in the region s high mountains and plateaux In southern Asia the boundary of the Palearctic is largely altitudinal The middle altitude foothills of the Himalaya between about 2 000 2 500 m 6 600 8 200 ft form the boundary between the Palearctic and Indomalaya ecoregions East Asia China Korea and Japan are more humid and temperate than adjacent Siberia and Central Asia and are home to rich temperate coniferous broadleaf and mixed forests which are now mostly limited to mountainous areas as the densely populated lowlands and river basins have been converted to intensive agricultural and urban use East Asia was not much affected by glaciation in the ice ages and retained 96 percent of Pliocene citation needed tree genera while Europe retained only 27 percent In the subtropical region of southern China and southern edge of the Himalayas the Palearctic temperate forests transition to the subtropical and tropical forests of Indomalaya creating a rich and diverse mix of plant and animal species The mountains of southwest China are also designated as a biodiversity hotspot In Southeastern Asia high mountain ranges form tongues of Palearctic flora and fauna in northern Indochina and southern China Isolated small outposts sky islands occur as far south as central Myanmar on Nat Ma Taung 3 050 m 10 010 ft northernmost Vietnam on Fan Si Pan 3 140 m 10 300 ft and the high mountains of Taiwan Freshwater The realm contains several important freshwater ecoregions as well including the heavily developed rivers of Europe the rivers of Russia which flow into the Arctic Baltic Black and Caspian seas Siberia s Lake Baikal the oldest and deepest lake on the planet and Japan s ancient Lake Biwa Flora and faunaOne bird family the accentors Prunellidae is endemic to the Palearctic region The Holarctic has four other endemic bird families the divers or loons Gaviidae grouse Tetraoninae auks Alcidae and waxwings Bombycillidae There are no endemic mammal orders in the region but several families are endemic Calomyscidae mouse like hamsters Prolagidae and Ailuridae red pandas Several mammal species originated in the Palearctic and spread to the Nearctic during the Ice Age including the brown bear Ursus arctos known in North America as the grizzly red deer Cervus elaphus in Europe and the closely related elk Cervus canadensis in far eastern Siberia American bison Bison bison and reindeer Rangifer tarandus known in North America as the caribou Megafaunal extinctions Several large Palearctic animals became extinct from the end of the Pleistocene into historic times including Irish elk Megaloceros giganteus aurochs Bos primigenius woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius North African elephant Loxodonta africana pharaoensis Chinese elephant Elephas maximus rubridens cave bear Ursus spelaeus Straight tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus and European lion Panthera leo europaea Palearctic terrestrial ecoregionsThe outlined ecoregions of the eastern Palearctic realm each of a colored biome The outlined ecoregions of the western Palearctic realm each of a colored biome Note that this realm as a whole has 10 of 14 biomes or major habitat types as defined by Olson amp Dinerstein et al 2001 01 Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests 02 Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests 03 Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests 04 Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests 05 Temperate coniferous forests 06 Taiga and Boreal forest 07 Tropical and subtropical grasslands savannas and shrublands 08 Temperate grasslands savannas and shrublands 09 Flooded grasslands and savannas 10 Montane grasslands and shrublands 11 Tundra 12 Mediterranean forests woodlands and scrub 13 Deserts and xeric shrublands 14 Mangroves Rock and Ice or Abiotic Land ZonesPalearctic tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregionsvteGuizhou Plateau broadleaf and mixed forests ChinaYunnan Plateau subtropical evergreen forests ChinaPalearctic temperate broadleaf and mixed forestsApennine deciduous montane forests ItalyAtlantic mixed forests Belgium Denmark France Germany NetherlandsAzores temperate mixed forests PortugalBalkan mixed forests Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Greece Kosovo North Macedonia Romania Serbia TurkeyBaltic mixed forests Denmark Germany Poland SwedenCantabrian mixed forests France Portugal SpainCaspian Hyrcanian mixed forests Azerbaijan IranCaucasus mixed forests Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Iran Russia TurkeyCeltic broadleaf forests Ireland United KingdomCentral Anatolian deciduous forests TurkeyCentral China loess plateau mixed forests ChinaCentral European mixed forests Austria Belarus Czech Republic Germany Lithuania Moldova Poland Romania Russia UkraineCentral Korean deciduous forests North Korea South KoreaChangbai Mountains mixed forests China North KoreaChangjiang Plain evergreen forests ChinaCrimean Submediterranean forest complex Russia UkraineDaba Mountains evergreen forests ChinaDinaric Mountains mixed forests Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Italy Kosovo Montenegro Serbia SloveniaEast European forest steppe Bulgaria Moldova Romania Russia UkraineEastern Anatolian deciduous forests TurkeyEnglish Lowlands beech forests United KingdomEuxine Colchic deciduous forests Bulgaria Georgia TurkeyHokkaido deciduous forests JapanHuang He Plain mixed forests ChinaMadeira evergreen forests PortugalManchurian mixed forests China North Korea Russia South KoreaNihonkai evergreen forests JapanNihonkai montane deciduous forests JapanNorth Atlantic moist mixed forests Ireland United Kingdom Northern Ireland Scotland Denmark Faroe Islands Northeast China Plain deciduous forests ChinaPannonian mixed forests Austria Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Czech Republic Hungary Romania Serbia Slovakia Slovenia UkrainePo Basin mixed forests Italy SwitzerlandPyrenees conifer and mixed forests Andorra France SpainQin Ling Mountains deciduous forests ChinaRodope montane mixed forests Bulgaria Greece North Macedonia SerbiaSarmatic mixed forests Belarus Denmark Estonia Finland Latvia Lithuania Norway Russia SwedenSichuan Basin evergreen broadleaf forests ChinaSouth Sakhalin Kurile mixed forests RussiaSouthern Korea evergreen forests South KoreaTaiheiyo evergreen forests JapanTaiheiyo montane deciduous forests JapanTarim Basin deciduous forests and steppe ChinaUssuri broadleaf and mixed forests RussiaWest Siberian broadleaf and mixed forests RussiaWestern European broadleaf forests Austria Belgium Czech Republic France Germany Luxembourg Netherlands Poland SwitzerlandZagros Mountains forest steppe Iran Iraq TurkeyvtePalearctic temperate coniferous forests ecoregionsAlps conifer and mixed forests Austria France Germany Italy Slovenia SwitzerlandAltai montane forest and forest steppe China Kazakhstan Mongolia RussiaCaledon conifer forests United KingdomCarpathian montane conifer forests Czech Republic Poland Romania Slovakia UkraineDa Hinggan Dzhagdy Mountains conifer forests China RussiaEast Afghan montane conifer forests Afghanistan PakistanElburz Range forest steppe IranHelanshan montane conifer forests ChinaHengduan Mountains subalpine conifer forests ChinaHokkaido montane conifer forests JapanHonshu alpine conifer forests JapanKhangai Mountains conifer forests MongoliaMediterranean conifer and mixed forests Algeria Morocco Spain TunisiaNortheastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests China India BhutanNorthern Anatolian conifer and deciduous forests TurkeyNujiang Langcang Gorge alpine conifer and mixed forests ChinaQilian Mountains conifer forests ChinaQionglai Minshan conifer forests ChinaSayan montane conifer forests Mongolia RussiaScandinavian coastal conifer forests NorwayTian Shan montane conifer forests China Kazakhstan KyrgyzstanPalearctic boreal forests taiga ecoregionsvteEast Siberian taiga RussiaIceland boreal birch forests and alpine tundra IcelandKamchatka Kurile meadows and sparse forests RussiaKamchatka Kurile taiga RussiaNortheast Siberian taiga RussiaOkhotsk Manchurian taiga RussiaSakhalin Island taiga RussiaScandinavian and Russian taiga Finland Norway Russia SwedenTrans Baikal conifer forests Mongolia RussiaUrals montane tundra and taiga RussiaWest Siberian taiga RussiaPalearctic temperate grasslands savannas and shrublands ecoregionsvteAlai Western Tian Shan steppe Kazakhstan Tajikistan UzbekistanAltai steppe and semi desert KazakhstanCentral Anatolian steppe TurkeyDaurian forest steppe China Mongolia RussiaEastern Anatolian montane steppe Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia Iran TurkeyEmin Valley steppe China KazakhstanFaroe Islands boreal grasslands Faroe Islands DenmarkGissaro Alai open woodlands Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan UzbekistanKazakh forest steppe Kazakhstan RussiaKazakh steppe Kazakhstan RussiaKazakh Uplands KazakhstanMongolian Manchurian grassland China Mongolia RussiaPontic steppe Kazakhstan Moldova Romania Russia Ukraine BulgariaSayan Intermontane steppe RussiaSelenge Orkhon forest steppe Mongolia RussiaSouth Siberian forest steppe RussiaSyrian xeric grasslands and shrublands Iraq Jordan SyriaTian Shan foothill arid steppe China Kazakhstan KyrgyzstanPalearctic flooded grasslands and savannas ecoregionsvteAmur meadow steppe China RussiaBohai Sea saline meadow ChinaNenjiang River grassland ChinaNile Delta flooded savanna EgyptSaharan halophytics Algeria Egypt Mauritania Tunisia Western SaharaTigris Euphrates alluvial salt marsh Iraq IranUssuri Wusuli meadow and forest meadow China RussiaYellow Sea saline meadow ChinaPalearctic montane grasslands and shrublands ecoregionsvteAltai alpine meadow and tundra China Kazakhstan Mongolia RussiaCentral Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe ChinaEastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows Bhutan Myanmar China India NepalGhorat Hazarajat alpine meadow AfghanistanHindu Kush alpine meadow AfghanistanKarakoram West Tibetan Plateau alpine steppe Afghanistan China India PakistanKhangai Mountains alpine meadow MongoliaKopet Dag woodlands and forest steppe Iran TurkmenistanKuh Rud and Eastern Iran montane woodlands IranMediterranean High Atlas juniper steppe MoroccoNorth Tibetan Plateau Kunlun Mountains alpine desert ChinaNorthwestern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows China India PakistanOrdos Plateau steppe ChinaPamir alpine desert and tundra Afghanistan China Kyrgyzstan TajikistanQilian Mountains subalpine meadows ChinaSayan alpine meadows and tundra Mongolia RussiaSoutheast Tibet shrub and meadows ChinaSulaiman Range alpine meadows Afghanistan PakistanTian Shan montane steppe and meadows China Kazakhstan KyrgyzstanTibetan Plateau alpine shrublands and meadows ChinaWestern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows India NepalYarlung Zambo arid steppe ChinaPalearctic tundra ecoregionsvteArctic desert Russia Svalbard Norway Bering tundra RussiaCherskii Kolyma mountain tundra RussiaChukchi Peninsula tundra RussiaKamchatka Mountain tundra and forest tundra RussiaKola Peninsula tundra Norway RussiaNortheast Siberian coastal tundra RussiaNorthwest Russian Novaya Zemlya tundra RussiaNew Siberian Islands arctic desert RussiaScandinavian montane birch forest and grasslands Finland Norway SwedenTaimyr Central Siberian tundra RussiaTrans Baikal Bald Mountain tundra RussiaWrangel Island arctic desert RussiaYamalagydanskaja tundra RussiaPalearctic Mediterranean forests woodlands and scrub ecoregionsvteAegean and Western Turkey sclerophyllous and mixed forests Greece North Macedonia TurkeyAnatolian conifer and deciduous mixed forests TurkeyCanary Islands dry woodlands and forests SpainCorsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests FranceCrete Mediterranean forests GreeceCyprus Mediterranean forests CyprusEastern Mediterranean conifer sclerophyllous broadleaf forests Israel Jordan Lebanon Syria TurkeyIberian conifer forests SpainIberian sclerophyllous and semi deciduous forests Portugal SpainIllyrian deciduous forests Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Greece Italy SloveniaItalian sclerophyllous and semi deciduous forests France ItalyMediterranean acacia argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets Morocco Canary Islands Spain Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe Algeria Egypt Libya Morocco TunisiaMediterranean woodlands and forests Algeria Libya Morocco TunisiaNortheastern Spain and Southern France Mediterranean forests France Monaco SpainNorthwest Iberian montane forests Portugal SpainPindus Mountains mixed forests Albania Greece North MacedoniaSouth Apennine mixed montane forests ItalySoutheastern Iberian shrubs and woodlands SpainSouthern Anatolian montane conifer and deciduous forests Israel Jordan Lebanon Syria TurkeySouthwest Iberian Mediterranean sclerophyllous and mixed forests Portugal SpainTyrrhenian Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests Croatia France Italy MaltaPalearctic deserts and xeric shrublandsAfghan Mountains semi desert AfghanistanAlashan Plateau semi desert China MongoliaArabian Desert Egypt Israel Iraq Jordan Kuwait Palestine Saudi Arabia YemenAtlantic coastal desert Mauritania Western SaharaAzerbaijan shrub desert and steppe Azerbaijan Georgia IranBadghyz and Karabil semi desert Afghanistan Iran Tajikistan Turkmenistan UzbekistanBaluchistan xeric woodlands Afghanistan PakistanCaspian lowland desert Iran Kazakhstan Russia TurkmenistanCentral Afghan Mountains xeric woodlands AfghanistanCentral Asian northern desert Kazakhstan UzbekistanCentral Asian riparian woodlands Kazakhstan Turkmenistan UzbekistanCentral Asian southern desert Kazakhstan Turkmenistan UzbekistanCentral Persian desert basins Afghanistan IranEastern Gobi desert steppe China MongoliaGobi Lakes Valley desert steppe MongoliaGreat Lakes Basin desert steppe Mongolia RussiaJunggar Basin semi desert China MongoliaKazakh semi desert KazakhstanKopet Dag semi desert Iran TurkmenistanMesopotamian shrub desert Iraq Iran Israel Jordan SyriaNorth Saharan steppe and woodlands Algeria Egypt Libya Mauritania Morocco Tunisia Western SaharaParopamisus xeric woodlands AfghanistanPersian Gulf desert and semi desert Bahrain Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia United Arab EmiratesQaidam Basin semi desert ChinaRed Sea coastal desert Egypt SudanRed Sea Nubo Sindian tropical desert and semi desert Egypt Jordan Oman Saudi Arabia YemenRegistan North Pakistan sandy desert Afghanistan Iran PakistanSahara desert Algeria Chad Egypt Libya Mali Niger Sudan Western SaharaSouth Iran Nubo Sindian desert and semi desert Iran Iraq PakistanSouth Saharan steppe and woodlands Algeria Chad Mali Mauritania Niger SudanTaklimakan desert ChinaTibesti Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands Chad Egypt Libya SudanWest Saharan montane xeric woodlands Algeria Mali Mauritania NigerReferencesSclater Philip Lutley 1858 On the general geographical distribution of the members of the class Aves Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 2 7 130 145 doi 10 1111 j 1096 3642 1858 tb02549 x Olson D M Dinerstein E Wikramanayake E D Burgess N D Powell G V N Underwood E C D Amico J A Itoua I Strand H E Morrison J C Loucks C J Allnutt T F Ricketts T H Kura Y Lamoreux J F Wettengel W W Hedao P Kassem K R 2001 Terrestrial ecoregions of the world a new map of life on Earth Bioscience 51 11 933 938 1 Archived 2012 09 17 at the Wayback Machine Eric Dinerstein David Olson et al 2017 An Ecoregion Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm BioScience Volume 67 Issue 6 June 2017 Pages 534 545 2 General referencesAmorosi T Contributions to the zooarchaeology of Iceland some preliminary notes in The Anthropology of Iceland eds E P Durrenberger amp G Palsson Iowa City University of Iowa Press pp 203 227 1989 Buckland P C et al Holt in Eyjafjasveit Iceland a paleoecological study of the impact of Landnam in Acta Archaeologica 61 pp 252 271 1991 http www Merriam Webster com http www Canadianbiodiversity mcgill ca http www bbc co uk nature ecozones Palearctic ecozone Edmund Burke III The Transformation of the middle Eastern Environment 1500 B C E 2000 C E in The Environment and World History ed Edmund Burke III and Kenneth Pomeranz Berkeley University of California Press 2009 82 84 External linksPalearctic realm at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from CommonsTravel information from Wikivoyage Avionary 1500 Bird species of the Western and Central Palaearctic in 46 languages Map of the ecozones
