Tsentralno-Lesnoy Zapovednik, Russia Photograph by Igor Shpilenok   Northern Europe: Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia, and Sweden Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests   326,700 square miles (846,100 square kilometers) -- about thrice the size of Nevada Critical/Endangered

· Location and General Description
· Biodiversity Features
· Current Status
· Threats
· Ecoregion Justification
· References
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This ecoregion separates the boreal taiga in the north from the forested broadleaf belt in the south. It consists of mixed temperate and boreal forests with the northern limits defined by the presence of oak (Quercus).(Ozenda 1994) Picea abies and Pinus sylvestris are the major conifer species. Belovezhskaia Pushcha National Park, the largest area of ancient forest in Europe, preserves forest flora and fauna including the reintroduced Belovezhski bison. Other mammals of the ecoregion are widespread throughout most of Europe. The Chernobyl disaster contaminated much of the territory in this ecoregion and acid rain from industrial plants is also a serious problem.

Location and General Description

Biodiversity Features

Current Status

Types and Severity of Threats

Justification of Ecoregion Delineation

This ecoregion is equivalent to the DMEER unit of the same name, and the boundaries are primarily a result of that process. It consists of the lowland-colline, partly submontane, hemiboreal spruce and fir-spruce forests that stretch from southern Sweden, through the Baltic states, and ends at the Urals in Russia. Some areas of lowland to submontane hemiboreal and nemoral pine forests in Sweden, and lowland-colline middle and southern to hemiboreal pine forests in Russia are also included in this ecoregion (Bohn et al. 2000).

References

Bohn, U., G. Gollub, and C. Hettwer. 2000. Reduced general map of the natural vegetation of Europe. 1:10,000,000. Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Bonn.

IUCN. 1996. Atlas of biological diversity in forests of European Russia and adjacent territories. PAIMS, Moscow (in Russian).

Kurnaev, S. F. 1973. Forest regionalization of the USSR. Nauka, Moscow (in Russian).

Sjors, H. 1999. Swedish plant geography. The background: Geology, climate and zonation. Acta Phytogeogr. Suec. Uppsala: Opulus press, 84:5-14.

For more general information on this ecoregion, go to the WildWorld version of this description.