Publication sur la Grande Mulette dans la revue Hydrobiologia

Article sur la Grande Mulette par Vincent Prié

La Grande Mulette vient de faire l’objet d’un article intitulé Challenging exploration of troubled waters: a decade of surveys of the giant freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera auricularia in Europe, publié en cette fin d’année par Hydrobiologia. Plusieurs collaborateurs de Biotope, dont Laurent Philippe, Nicolas Patry, Benjamin Adam et Nicolas Legrand ont participé à sa rédaction et son auteur principal est Vincent Prié, également auteur du récent Naïades et autres mollusques bivalves d’eau douce de France.

Cet article a rassemblé un cortège de malacologues, hydrobiologistes, experts en milieux aquatiques et humides afin de porter à connaissance le travail, les méthodes et ainsi les résultats exploitables pendant ces dix dernières années à propos de la Grande Mulette.

Référence Bibliographique : Prié, V., Soler, J., Araujo, R., Cucherat, X., Philippe, L., Patry, N., Adam, B., Legrand, N.,  & Jugé, Philippe & Richard, Nina & M. Wantzen, Karl. (2017). Challenging exploration of troubled waters: a decade of surveys of the giant freshwater pearl mussel Margaritifera auricularia in Europe. In Hydrobiologia. 10.1007/s10750-017-3456-0.

Résumé (anglais) : The critically endangered Giant Freshwater Pearl Mussel Margaritifera auricularia was presumed extinct before its rediscovery in Spain in 1985 and France in 2000. Since then, numerous surveys have been set up to search for living populations in France and Spain. This article presents an up-to-date account of species distribution based on available data, i.e. the literature, museum collections and recent field surveys, and provides unpublished molecular data for France. There are still three populations of the Giant Freshwater Pearl Mussel in the Ebro River in Spain, and eight populations in France (two in the Loire watershed, one in the Charente watershed, two in the Garonne watershed and three in the Adour watershed). The biggest population lives in the Charente River with an estimated 100,000 individuals. Recruitment is very scarce in all populations but living specimens estimated to be less than 10 years old have been found in the Ebro in Spain and in the Vienne, Charente, Dronne and Adour rivers in France. The recent rediscovery of populations in France was mainly a result of intensive dedicated surveys including scuba diving. Subsequent advances in knowledge show how large rivers and downstream ecosystems remain a terra incognita for the hydrobiologist.