Habitats and Species Covered by the Article 17 Report

HABITATS DIRECTIVE ARTICLE 17 REPORT ( 2001 – 2006 ) HABITATS AND SPECIES COVERED BY THE ARTICLE 17 REPORT This paper is part of the web-based Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) http://biodiversity.eionet.europa.eu/article17 compiled by the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity for the European Commission (DG Environment) DISCLAIMER: The contents of this paper do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Environment Agency, the European Commission or other European Communities institutions. ETC/BD, Paris, 2008 Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) Habitats and species covered by the Article 17 report At the end of the reporting period 2001-2006 the annexes of the Directive listed 216 European habitats on Annex I and approximately 1180 species1 on Annexes II, IV and V2. The Annex I habitats are described in the ‘Interpretation Manual of European Union Habitats’3 and discussed in Evans (2006)4. The number of the habitats and species reported by each Member State is shown on Table 1 for each annex of the Directive. At the European level Article 17 report covers all the 216 habitats and 1182 species, however there are few species for which no report was provided. In terms of species and habitats of community interest (as defined in the directive), diversity is concentrated in the Mediterranean basin and Macaronesian region. The larger countries in this area (Italy, France and Spain) have over 100 habitats and more than 200 Annex II species. The number of the occasional, marginal and extinct habitats and species per biogeographical region for each Member State can be found in the National Summaries (http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/monnat/library?l=/habitats_reporting/reporting_2001-2007/ms- reports_summaries&vm=detailed&sb=Title) and lists of species in the Reporting Checklists (http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/env/monnat/library?l=/habitats_reporting/reporting_2001-2007/ms- reports_checklists&vm=detailed&sb=Title). Conservation status was assessed separately for each biogeographical region present in a Member State; the number of assessments per country is shown on Table 2. Not all of the Member States reported for all of the habitats and species which are thought to be present in their territory, however this is a very small percentage of all of the habitats and species. If other sources refer to the presence of the habitat and species in the territory of a Member State this has been noted in the Datasheet for that habitat or species. Several countries reported species which do not have a stable population in the territory of that Member State (occasional species), or occurs there marginally. Reports were received for 119 occasional, marginal and vagrant species; these are not included in the statistics presented below. Similarly these species are not included in the number of the assessments on Table 2. Appendix 1 gives detailed information on the number of habitats and species in each biogeographical and marine region. 1 In some cases this includes subspecies or genera 2 Further habitats and species were added to the annexes in January 2007 when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU. 3 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/legislation/habitatsdirective/docs/2007_07_im.pdf 4 Evans, D. (2006) The habitats of the European Union Habitats Directive. Biology and the Environment (Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy) 106B(3) 167-173 http://www.ria.ie/cgi- bin/ria/papers/100619.pdf Habitats and species covered by the Article 17 report 1 Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) Table 1 - Number of the habitats and species reported by each Member State (note that one species may be listed on two annexes) HABITATS SPECIES MS Annex I Annex II Annex IV Annex V BE 58 44 51 21 CZ 60 107 119 24 DK 58 36 42 15 DE 91 108 109 88 EE 60 51 58 23 IE 59 26 35 20 EL 85 129 197 26 ES 118 267 344 44 FR 132 159 204 53 IT 130 194 249 35 CY 48 35 50 0 LV 57 60 67 27 LT 54 49 59 29 LU 29 23 36 16 HU 46 140 158 26 MT 31 26 47 5 NL 51 36 48 21 AT 66 93 103 34 PL 79 121 127 31 PT 99 208 257 47 SI 50 116 130 41 SK 66 134 141 24 FI 69 83 67 21 SE 88 104 92 27 UK 83 46 51 25 EU 216 1182 Habitats and species covered by the Article 17 report 2 Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) Table 2 - Number of assessments of conservation status and number of biogeographical and marine regions for each Member State Number of Number of Number of assessments assessments biogeographical MS made for made for and marine habitats species regions BE 87 136 3 CZ 95 253 2 DK 108 108 4 DE 193 480 5 EE 60 96 2 IE 59 67 2 EL 85 242 2 ES 246 646 7 FR 303 658 6 IT 269 564 4 CY 48 50 2 LV 57 112 2 LT 54 103 2 LU 29 59 1 HU 46 207 1 MT 31 55 2 NL 51 84 2 AT 112 290 2 PL 112 270 3 PT 158 429 5 SI 89 336 3 SK 102 320 2 FI 92 144 3 SE 183 262 5 UK 87 93 4 All MS 2756 6064 11 EU 701 2240 11 Habitats and species covered by the Article 17 report 3 Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) Diversity of habitats and species from the annexes Habitat and species diversity was calculated using ArcGIS based on the number of Annex I habitats or Annex II, IV & V species present in each cell of a 10 x 10 km grid based on the grid maps of habitat and species distribution generalised by the ETC/BD. Diversity was indicated by colour with blue indicating low and red high diversity. To be noted that these diversity maps only concern habitats and species covered by the Habitats Directive and do not necessarily reflect the actual diversity in the field. Figure 1 - Habitat diversity across the European Union – see text for details Habitats and species covered by the Article 17 report 4 Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) Diversity of habitats across the EU25 is shown on Figure 1 which suggests that France is more diverse than other countries, but this is a result of the coarse resolution of the French distribution maps. It should also be noted that for 50% of habitats in Spain no map was available. This is discussed in more detail in the paper 'Data completeness, quality and coherence' available on the Article 17 web page. Although it is difficult to make comparisons between countries, the map clearly shows the areas within individual countries which are more diverse, for example in France the mountains of the Alps and Pyrenees, together with the coasts of Brittany and Normandy clearly have more habitats per 10 x 10 km cell than elsewhere. This is to be expected as a 10x10 km cell in the mountains will contain habitats typical of several altitude zones while a coastal cell will host both coastal (e.g. the several dune habitats included on Annex I) and more typically inland habitats. Mountains are visible as areas of high habitat diversity in many countries including the Czech Republic, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Figure 2 - Species diversity across the European Union – see text for details Habitats and species covered by the Article 17 report 5 Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) Diversity of species is shown on Figure 2; again it is difficult to make generalisations across the EU25 with 65% of Spanish species not being included in the analysis as no maps were provided. The published literature5 suggests that the Mediterranean basin should be more species diverse than northern or central Europe, but the map does not show this. This may be partly explained by the relatively large number of species with a restricted distribution, including many localised endemics, in the Mediterranean as shown in Figure 3 and by the unbalanced representation of Member States species in the annexes of the Directive. Figure 3 - Distribution of species of Community interest with a restricted distribution within the EU25 (see text for details) Species where the reported distribution falls within a box with an area of 10 000 km2 or less were identified using ArcGIS and these are shown on Figure 3. Some 416 species out of a total of 1 182 reported species (35%) have a very restricted distribution within the EU25. From these 416 species, 10 species are located in only one grid cell of 10 x10 km and another 186 are restricted to a rectangle of 1 000 km2. While a large number are endemics some are also found beyond the EU25 borders, some in EU Member States Bulgaria or Romania, and others in other European, African or Asian countries The list of these 416 species is in Appendix 2 Although Figure 3 combines EU25 endemics and species also found elsewhere the importance of the Mediterranean basin for endemic species is clearly shown. In fact this map underestimates its 5 For example see Médail, F. & Quézel, P. 1999. Biodiversity hotspots in the Mediterranean Basin: Setting global conservation priorities. Conservation Biology 13: 1510-1513 and Myers, N. & Cowling, R. 1999. Mediterranean Basin. In R.A. Mittermeier, N. Myers & C. Goettsch Mittermeier. (Eds.), Hotspots – Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions. pp. 254-267. Mexico City: CEMEX & Conservation International Habitats and species covered by the Article 17 report 6 Article 17 Technical Report (2001-2006) importance as many species maps from Spain were missing.

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