This ecoregion of Eastern Europe is essentially equivalent to the Carpathian Basin (or Pannonian Basin), lowlands bordered by the Carpathian Mountains to the east, the Alps to the west, and the Dinaric Alps to the south. The low-elevation Transdanubian Mountains dissect the ecoregion, separating the Great Hungarian Plain from the Little Hungarian Plain (mostly in northwestern Hungary and Slovakia).
It is centred on Hungary, which it entirely contains, but also includes, from the north clockwise, parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Austria.
Adjacent Ecoregions include the Carpathian Mountain Forests (PA0504, with a disjunct high-altitude area in Romania), Balkan Mixed Forests (PA0404) to the south, Dinaric Mountains Mixed Forests (PA0418) to the southwest, the Alps Conifers and Mixed Forests (PA0501), a sliver of the Western European Broadleaf Forests (PA0445) just west of Vienna, and the Central European Mixed Forests (PA0412) to the northwest.
Description of the Ecoregion
As described by WWF, this ecoregion consists of the depression surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains, Alps, and Dinaric Mountains. Avifauna diversity is high; there are fifty Important Bird Areas in this ecoregion. There are a number of natural parks in this ecoregion, but much of the natural habitat has been lost to agriculture.
The ecoregion is based on the complex of vegetation in the Pannonian basin. This complex includes subcontinental thermophilous (mixed) pedunculate oak and sessile oak forests, sub-Mediterranean subcontinental thermophilous bitter oak forests, as well as mixed forests, mixed oak-hornbeam forests, sub-Mediterranean-subcontinental lowland to montane herb-grass steppes, and azonal floodplain vegetation.
Birds of the Ecoregion
Text under development.