The animals living in Asia and its surrounding seas and islands are considered the fauna of Asia. Since there is no natural biogeographic boundary in the west between Europe and Asia, the term "fauna of Asia" is somewhat elusive but it is a geographical name given. Temperate Asia is the eastern part of the Palearctic realm (which in turn is part of the Holarctic), and its south-eastern part belongs to the Indomalayan realm (previously called the Oriental region). Asia shows a notable diversity of habitats, with significant variations in rainfall, altitude, topography, temperature and geological history, which is reflected in its richness and diversity of animal life.
The formation of the Asian fauna began in the Mesozoic with the splitting of Laurasian supercontinent. Asia blends elements from both ancient supercontinents of Laurasia and Gondwana. Gondwanian elements were introduced from Africa and by India, which detached from the Gondwana land which is approximately 90 MYA, carrying its Gondwana-derived flora and fauna northward. Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the immigration of man affected the distribution of Asian fauna (see also Sahara pump theory). Eurasia and North America were many times are connected by the Bering land bridge, and have very similar mammal and bird faunas, with many Eurasian species having moved into North America, and fewer things North American species having moved into Eurasia (many zoologists consider the Palearctic and Nearctic to be a single Holarctic realm).[3]
Zoogeographic regions
Satellite view of Asia.
European-Siberian region
The boreal and temperate European-Siberian region is the Palearctic's largest 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. Liquid water is unavailable for much of the winter, and plants and many of the animals undergo a winter dormancy in which metabolism is very slow. South of the taiga are a belt of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and temperate coniferous forests. This vast region is characterized by many shared plant and animal species. Some characteristic mammals are Siberian roe deer, gray wolf, moose and wolverine.
Mediterranean Basin
The lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea in southwestern Asia are home to the Mediterranean basin ecoregions, which together constitute 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, or urbanization, have degraded much of the region. Conservation International has designated the Mediterranean basin as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots.
Middle East deserts
A great belt of deserts, including the Arabian Desert, separates the Palearctic, Afrotropic and true Asian ecoregions. This scheme includes these desert ecoregions in the Palearctic realm; other biogeographers identify the boundary between realms 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. Gazelles, oryx, sand cats, and spiny-tailed lizards are some of the desert-desert-adapted species that survive in this extreme environment. Many species, such as the striped hyena, jackal and honey badger have become extinct in this area due to hunting, human encroachment and habitat destruction. Other species have been successfully re-introduced, such as the endangered Arabian oryx and the sand gazelle.
Central Asia and the Iranian plateau are home to dry steppegrasslands 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 2000–2500 m form the boundary between the Palearctic and Indomalaya ecoregions.
China 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. In the subtropical southern parts of China and Japan, 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, the Himalayas containing for example about 8% of the world's bird species.[4] In Southeastern Asia, high mountain ranges form tongues of Palearctic flora and fauna in northern Myanmar and southern China. Isolated small outposts (sky islands) occur as far south as central Myanmar, northernmost Vietnam and the high mountains of Taiwan.
The Indian Subcontinent bioregion covers most of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. The Hindu Kush, Karakoram, Himalaya, and Patkai ranges bound the bioregion on the northwest, north, and northeast; these ranges were formed by the collision of the northward-drifting Indian subcontinent with Asia beginning 45 million years ago. The Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalaya are a major biogeographic boundary between the subtropical and tropical fauna of the Indian subcontinent and the temperate climate Palearctic realm. The Western Ghats and Sri Lanka are important biodiversity hotspots.[5]
Malesia is a province which straddles the boundary between the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. It includes the Malay Peninsula and the western Indonesian islands (Sumatra, Java, Borneo and others, known as Sundaland), the Philippines, the eastern Indonesian islands, and New Guinea. While the Malesia has much in common botanically, the portions east and west of the Wallace Line differ greatly in land animal species; Sundaland shares its fauna with mainland Asia, while the islands east of the Wallace line either lack land mammals, or are home to a land fauna derived from Australia, which includes marsupial mammals and ratite birds. The insects of New Guinea are however mainly of Asian origin.[6]
There are strong affinities and relationships between Mediterranean and Atlantic faunas. The deep-water fauna of the Mediterranean has no distinctive characteristics and is relatively poor. Both are a result of events after the Messinian salinity crisis.[7] An invasion of Indian Ocean species has begun via the Suez Canal (see Lessepsian migration).
The Indo-Pacific is a rich biogeographic region including most part of the Asian seas, comprising the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia (it does not include the temperate and polar regions of the Indian and Pacific oceans, and the Tropical Eastern Pacific, along the Pacific coast of the Americas, is also a distinct marine realm).
Wild Asian elephant populations are disappearing due to depletion of food sources and destruction of habitats
Across Asia wildlife populations and habitats are being decimated by poorly controlled industrial and agricultural exploitation, by infrastructure development (construction of dams, roads and tourist facilities), and by illegal activities such as poaching and timber theft. The result is loss of biodiversity and loss of livelihoods. A culture of indiscriminate wildlife use combined with poverty, population growth and rapid economic development has created a wave of pressure on natural ecosystems. China's spectacular economic growth, in particular, is straining the supply of natural resources throughout the region.[8] Southeast Asia has the highest relative rate of deforestation of any major tropical region, and could lose three quarters of its original forests by 2100 and up to 42% of its biodiversity.[9] The Southeast Asian region's biodiversity is arguably the most threatened, with some of the highest rates of forest loss combined with severe hunting pressure and a variety of other threats (Hughes, 2017).[10]
The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface.
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the global conservation organization, as priorities for conservation. According to WWF, an ecoregion is defined as a "relatively large unit of land or water containing a characteristic set of natural communities that share a large majority of their species dynamics, and environmental conditions". For example, based on their levels of endemism, Madagascar gets multiple listings, ancient Lake Baikal gets one, and the North American Great Lakes get none.
The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopian Zone or Ethiopian Region.
The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia.
Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions.
The Philippine archipelago is one of the world's great reservoirs of biodiversity and endemism. The archipelago includes over 7000 islands, and a total land area of 300,780 km2.
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin, also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea, is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and warm to hot, dry summers, which supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation. It was a very important part of Mediterranean civilizations.
The biodiversity of Israel and Palestine is the fauna, flora and fungi of the geographical region of Israel and of the Palestinian National Authority. This geographical area within the historical region of Palestine extends from the Jordan River and Wadi Araba in the east, to the Mediterranean Sea and the Sinai desert in the west, to Lebanon in the north, and to the gulf of Aqaba, or Eilat in the south.
The fauna of Europe is all the animals living in Europe and its surrounding seas and islands. Europe is the western part of the Palearctic realm. Lying within the temperate region, the wildlife is not as rich as in the hottest regions, but is nevertheless diverse due to the variety of habitats and the faunal richness of Eurasia as a whole.
The Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Yunnan province, China. It lies within the drainage basins of the upper reaches of the Jinsha (Yangtze), Lancang (Mekong) and Nujiang (Salween) rivers, in the Yunnan section of the Hengduan Mountains.
The environment of Albania is characterised by unique flora and fauna and a variety of landforms contained within a small nation. It also consists of different ecoregions, which represent the natural geographical ecosystem, water systems, weather, renewable resources and influences upon them.
The Eastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests is a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion which is found in the middle and upper elevations of the eastern Middle Himalayas, in western Nepal, Bhutan, northern Indian states including Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim and adjacent Myanmar and China.
Biogeographic classification of India is the division of India according to biogeographic characteristics. Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species (biology), organisms, and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. India has a rich heritage of natural diversity. India ranks fourth in Asia and tenth in the world amongst the top 17 mega-diverse countries in the world. India harbours nearly 11% of the world's floral diversity comprising over 17500 documented flowering plants, 6200 endemic species, 7500 medicinal plants and 246 globally threatened species in only 2.4% of world's land area. India is also home to four biodiversity hotspots—Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Eastern Himalaya, Indo-Burma region, and the Western Ghats. Hence the importance of biogeographical study of India's natural heritage.
Fambong Lho Wildlife Sanctuary is a 51 km2 (20 sq mi) large wildlife sanctuary in Gangtok district of the state of Sikkim in India. It is contiguous with Khangchendzonga National Park and located around 30 km (19 mi) west of Gangtok. It hosts a few small hamlets inside, namely Dikchu, Pangthang, and Mangan and is managed by State Forest Department.
Naina Devi Himalayan Bird Conservation Reserve is a wildlife reserve in the Nainital district of the state of Uttarakhand in India. This reserve forest is located in Kumaon region of Uttarakhand and placed inside Nainital forest division. Nainital forest division at present has several birding trails and forest patches consisting of temperate broad-leaf forests to alpine grasslands to rhododendron shrubberies. Wide altitudinal variation supports a very large segment of avian fauna to inhibit in this forest range.
References
1 2 Geptner, V. G., Sludskij, A. A. (1972). Mlekopitajuščie Sovetskogo Soiuza. Vysšaia Škola, Moskva. (In Russian; English translation: Heptner, V.G., Sludskii, A. A., Komarov, A., Komorov, N.; Hoffmann, R. S. (1992). Mammals of the Soviet Union. Vol III: Carnivores (Feloidea). Smithsonian Institution and the National Science Foundation, Washington DC).
↑ C.B.Cox, P.D.Moore, Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach. Wiley-Blackwell, 2005
↑ Price, T. D., J. Zee, K. Jamdar, and N. Jamdar. 2003. Bird species diversity along the Himalaya: a comparison of Himachal Pradesh with Kashmir J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 100:394–410
↑ Helgen, K.M., Groves, C.P. Biodiversity in Sri Lanka and the Western Ghats. Science, vol 308, 8.apr. 2005
↑ R.J.Whittaker, J.M.Fernández-Palacios, Island Biogeography. Ecology, evolution, and conservation. Oxford University Press, 2007
↑ C.C.Emig, P.Geistdoerfer, The Mediterranean deep-sea fauna: historical evolution, bathymetric variations and geographical changes, Carnets de Géologie / Notebooks on Geology, 2004
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