4.3 Living resources

Flora

Except in some rare cases, few detailed information exist. In the Camargue area some 1 200 species of plants and seven natural habitats have been classified as preferential at the European scale. The Mauguio lagoon counts more than 25 species of green and red algae.

Aquatic fauna

The last census of the fauna indicates the presence of 31 different species in the Ayrolle Campignol lagoons. A census of 58 fish species was carried out in the Bages lagoon, 34 fish species in the Diana lagoon and 24 species in the Mauguio lagoon. In the Biguglia lagoon over 120 species of sedentary and migratory birds and 41 species of marine and freshwater fishes were censed. Everywhere the most abundant species are eels, seabass, seabreams, grey mullets, soles, atherinas, green crabs and shrimps.

 

Wildlife

The surface of the French Mediterranean lagoons and their surrounding peripheral wetlands is around 130 000 ha. This territory represents 17 percent of the French wetlands classified as important conservation areas of Community Interest, and all the lagoons constitute hot spots of plant and animal biodiversity and are included in the European network Natura 2000. Many commercially important migratory fish species spend a large part of their life cycle in these lagoons, which are also used by more than 200 species of sedentary or migrating birds among which 45 percent of the overall Mediterranean number of adult couples of flamingos. They also provide shelter for 40 percent of the French amphibian species.

The animal biodiversity of the Thau lagoon is high: 85 species of sedentary or migrating fish species and 60 species of sedentary or migrating bird species were censed. The invertebrates are also well represented, as shown in the Table II

Table II: Number of species present in Thau lagoon

 

Group Number of species
Protozoa several hundreds
Sponges 7
Coelenterata 28
Bryozoa 20
Worms more than 50
Echinodermata 12
Molluscs 70
Crustaceans 110
Arachnids 2
Tunicata 8
Fishes 85
Birds 60