Herpetofaunistic zonation of Northern Eurasia

Abstract

Distributions of herptile faunas were delimited on a 1:20 000 000 World Phytogeographic Map of Northern Eurasia divided into 245 10-degree longitudinal segments of the native subzone within the former USSR borders (1990). All herptile species recorded in every segment were listed, the Jaccard indices were calculated, and the similarity matrix was studied with cluster analysis. A hierarchic classification was made, composed of 3 herpetofaunistic regions divided into 5 subzones, some of the subzones subdivided into 13 biologic provinces, with some of the provinces broken down into 32 districts. Environmental factors correlating with faunistic nonuniformity were revealed. This division is 2 to 4 times more informative than the schemes proposed earlier and explain 73% of variance in the faunal similarity coefficient of specific areas (multiple correlation coefficient 0.85). Environmental factors can explain 84% of faunistic nonuniformity (correlation coefficient 0.92).