Fauna of Europe of the Baltic Sea has led to the evolution of many slightly divergent species, such as the Baltic Sea herring, which is a smaller variant of the Atlantic herring. The most frequent benthic species are "Saduria entomon" and "Monoporeia affinis", which is originally a freshwater species. A great part of its bottom is anoxic and without animal life. The Baltic Sea and North Sea are also home to a variety of marine mammals (common seals, grey seals). Europe contains several important freshwater ecoregions, including the heavily developed rivers of Europe, the rivers of Russia, which flow into the Arctic, Baltic,
History of the forest in Central Europe and ecology. The term Central Europe is generally used both geographically and ecologically to describe the area that lies roughly between the North Sea, the Alps, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. Historical and contemporary human activity has profoundly influenced the composition of forests in the densely populated region of Central Europe. Remaining forest in Central Europe today is not generally considered natural forest, but rather a cultural landscape created over thousands of years which consists almost exclusively of replacement communities. The oldest evidence of human and forest interaction in Central Europe is about 500 000 years ago, whenfrom