Abrau Peninsula

The Abrau Peninsula is a north-western spur of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range, located on the Black Sea between Novorossiysk and Anapa, in the Krasnodar Region of Russia. It contains the Utrish State Nature Reserve.

Abrau Peninsula

View of the coast of Utrish Nature Reserve
Abrau Peninsula Show map of Krasnodar Krai Abrau Peninsula Show map of European Russia
Geography
Location	Krasnodar Krai, Russia
Coordinates	44.79°N 37.53°E / 44.79; 37.53
Adjacent to	Black Sea
Administration
Russia

Climate and ecology

The Abrau Peninsula is the only place in Russia that harbours a Mediterranean vegetation.^[1][2] The climate of the Abrau Peninsula is sub-Mediterranean with cool rainy winters without a stable snow cover and with hot dry summers. The mean annual precipitation is 500 mm, the mean July and February temperatures are 23.7°C and 2.7°C, respectively.^[3] The area vegetation consists of three major belts:^[1] (1) coastal slopes with sub-Mediterranean xerophytic forests and shrublands with pistachio (Pistacia mutica), juniper (Juniperus excelsa, J. oxycedrus, J. foetidissima), oak (Quercus pubescens) and oriental hornbeam (Carpinus orientalis); (2) piedmont and low-mountain area with a combination of mesophitic and xerophytic forests and a predominance of two oak species (Q. pubescens, Q. petraea), oriental hornbeam and junipers; (3) low mountains with mesophitic deciduous forests with a domination of oak (Q. petraea), hornbeam (Carpinus caucasica), lime (Tilia begoniifolia), maple (Acer laetum), ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and beech (Fagus orientalis).^[2]

References

1. Seregin, Alexey P.; Suslova, Elena G. (2007). "Contribution to the vascular plant flora of the Utrish area, a relic sub-Mediterranean ecosystem of the Russian Black Sea Coast". Willdenowia. 37 (2): 451–463. doi:10.3372/wi.37.37207.
2. Korobushkin, Daniil; Semenyuk, Irina; Tuf, Ivan (2016). "An annotated checklist of the Chilopoda and Diplopoda (Myriapoda) of the Abrau Peninsula, northwestern Caucasus, Russia". Biodiversity Data Journal. 4 (4): e7308. doi:10.3897/BDJ.4.e7308. PMC 4910498. PMID 27346949.
3. "Interactive agricultural ecological atlas of Russia and neighboring countries. Economic plants and their diseases, pests and weeds". 2009.

• This article incorporates text from a publication under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The source of the text is: Korobushkin, Daniil; Irina Semenyuk, & Ivan Tuf (2016). "An annotated checklist of the Chilopoda and Diplopoda (Myriapoda) of the Abrau Peninsula, northwestern Caucasus, Russia". Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7308. doi:10.3897/BDJ.4.e7308