Fauna Europaea

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Fauna Europaea is a database of the scientific names and distribution of all living multicellular European land and fresh-water animals. It serves as a standard taxonomic source for animal taxonomy within the Pan-European Species directories Infrastructure (PESI).^[1] As of June 2020^[update], Fauna Europaea reported that their database contained 235,708 taxon names and 173,654 species names.^[2]

Its construction was initially funded by the European Commission (2000–2004). The project was co-ordinated by the University of Amsterdam which launched the first version in 2004. The Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin took over the hosting of the web portal in 2013,^[1] and a new web portal was launched in 2015.^[3]

Fauna Europaea is an authoritative, expert-curated database that provides taxonomic names and national-level distributional information for all known multicellular, extant terrestrial and freshwater animals of Europe (sensu Fauna Europaea: Europe east to the Ural Mountains, excluding the Caucasus). The resource was created as a pan-European effort to deliver a standard taxonomic backbone for research, conservation, policy and biodiversity informatics services across Europe.

The Fauna Europaea project originated as a pan-European research initiative funded by the European Commission under the Fifth Framework Programme. The core project phase (early 2000s) focused on compiling and validating a comprehensive electronic index of scientific names and country-level distributions for Europe's terrestrial and freshwater fauna. The initial phase assembled technical infrastructure, editorial networks and the first validated dataset snapshots.

The database was published as an online service in the mid-2000s. Subsequent years saw continued curation by a distributed network of taxonomic experts, technical improvements to the data model and services, and migration of hosting to institutional partners. Integration into broader European biodiversity infrastructure initiatives has helped maintain its relevance and interoperability with other resources.

Fauna Europaea aims to document all extant multicellular, non-marine animal species that occur in the defined European area (Europe east to the Ural Mountains, excluding the Caucasus). The database records validated scientific names, synonymy, authorship, taxonomic hierarchy and country-level presence/absence for taxa.

Over time the database has grown to include a very large number of taxon names and accepted species-level names. The project has relied on hundreds of contributing specialists to assemble group-level checklists and to apply expert validation to names and distributions.

The Fauna Europaea data model captures scientific names, their position in a taxonomic hierarchy, authorship details, synonym lists and country-level occurrence records. Contributors prepare datasets for their taxonomic groups and submit them for validation; named specialists are responsible for maintaining and validating group-level content.

Quality control is built around this distributed editorial model: expert contributors and editors validate taxonomic concepts and synonymies, which helps ensure the database is a reliable taxonomic backbone for research and policy applications.

The project was initiated with European Union research funding and has depended on a combination of EU project grants, institutional hosting and in-kind contributions from partner museums, universities and institutes. The dataset has been assembled by a broad network of taxonomic specialists (several hundred contributors) who act as editors and data providers for particular taxonomic groups.

As a collaborative resource, governance rests with coordinating institutions and with the community of named specialist editors responsible for the content of specific groups.

Fauna Europaea is published as an open web service and has been made available for download and machine-to-machine integration. It has been integrated into broader European taxonomic infrastructures (for example Pan-European species directories initiatives) and is used by global aggregators and biodiversity platforms as a regional taxonomic reference.

Because the database provides country-level presence data and authoritative nomenclature, it is widely used for biodiversity assessments, environmental reporting, conservation planning, biosecurity screening and as a taxonomic backbone in ecological research.

The main contribution of Fauna Europaea is supplying a single, expert-validated taxonomic reference for European fauna that reduces ambiguity in species names and supports standardized biodiversity reporting. Typical applications include:

• Serving as a taxonomic backbone for biodiversity databases and monitoring programs.
• Supporting conservation assessments and national red-listing by providing baseline species checklists and distributional information.
• Integration with global data aggregators and regional portals that rely on stable taxonomic references.

The project has also produced many group-specific datasets and data papers that document the compilation process for particular taxonomic groups (for example insect orders, molluscs and others).

A number of limitations and caveats are associated with Fauna Europaea:

• Geographic scope: Marine species and taxa restricted to the Caucasus are outside the project's scope, so users requiring complete coverage must combine Fauna Europaea with marine or regional checklists.
• Temporal snapshots: The dataset represents a sequence of curated snapshots. Taxonomy is dynamic and continuous updating is required; periodic funding and project cycles can make continuous, comprehensive updating challenging.
• Variable completeness: Some groups (especially small or less-studied invertebrates) have historically required more specialist input to reach the same level of completeness as better-studied groups.

Efforts such as common standards and synchronization across European checklist initiatives aim to mitigate these limitations by enabling better update workflows and data sharing between projects.

• Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) — dataset and metadata referencing Fauna Europaea as a taxonomic resource.
• PESI — Pan-European Species directories and papers discussing integration and taxonomic backbones for Europe.

Wikidata has the property:

• Fauna Europaea ID (P1895) (see uses)

• "Fauna Europaea". Archived from the original on 4 May 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
• Jong, Yde de; Verbeek, Melina; Michelsen, Verner; Bjørn, Per de Place; Los, Wouter; Steeman, Fedor; Bailly, Nicolas; Basire, Claire; Chylarecki, Przemek; Stloukal, Eduard; Hagedorn, Gregor; Wetzel, Florian; Glöckler, Falko; Kroupa, Alexander; Korb, Günther; Hoffmann, Anke; Häuser, Christoph; Kohlbecker, Andreas; Müller, Andreas; Güntsch, Anton; Stoev, Pavel; Penev, Lyubomir (17 September 2014). "Fauna Europaea – all European animal species on the web". Biodiversity Data Journal. 2 (2): e4034. doi:10.3897/BDJ.2.e4034. PMC 4206781. PMID 25349527 – via bdj.pensoft.net.
• "Contributions on Fauna Europaea (data papers)". Archived from the original on 26 November 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
• Jong, Yde de; et al. (28 September 2015). "PESI - a taxonomic backbone for Europe". Biodiversity Data Journal. 3 (3): e5848. doi:10.3897/BDJ.3.e5848. PMC 4609752. PMID 26491393. PESI – a taxonomic backbone for Europe

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