Speech seminar 21 February
Abstract : Long-term data on changes in biodiversity of Mediterranean wetland habitats are patchy and meagre at best. Expert opinion offers substantial opportunities to fill these gaps and inform ecological models. One of the research priorities of Tour du Valat (in collaboration with Wetlands International) is to generate a database based on expert opinion to estimate changes in species diversity in the Camargue, one of the richest wetlands in the Mediterranean Basin. Here, we present the method used for data collection in order to determine the changes in biodiversity that have occurred in the Camargue over the last 40 years. The seminar also shows the first preliminary results of the main trends and patterns in species richness and abundance for eight different taxonomic groups, highlighting gainers and losers of current environmental changes.