Olivier Scher

Conservatoire d'espaces naturels d'Occitanie

Sous les climats tempérés, l’utilisation des plaques facilite grandement l’observation de serpents, permet de surprendre l’animal et ainsi réduit la brutalité d’une capture. Cette technique est souvent préférée à la recherche à vue, notamment pour étudier des espèces qui ne s’exposent pas beaucoup ou qui fuient très vite. Il est généralement nécess...

La connaissance de la biologie et de l’écologie d’espèces communes du sud de la France, comme la Couleuvre de Montpelier (Malpolon monspessulanus) et la Couleuvre à échelons (Zamenis scalaris), sont lacunaires ce qui limite la mise en œuvre de mesures de conservation. Une thèse CIFRE lancée en 2024 par le Conservatoire d’espaces naturels d’Occitani...

La Cistude d’Europe (Emys orbicularis) est une tortue d’eau douce protégée sur l’ensemble du territoire français et faisant l’objet d’un Plan National d’Actions (PNA). Dans le but de mieux comprendre son utilisation de l’espace, des individus ont été équipés de balises GPS au printemps 2023 sur deux sites méditerranéens : le marais de Tartuguière (...

The MIGRALION program as been launched in 2021 to understand how birds cross the Gulf of Lion during migratory flights, before the settlement of offshore wind energy facilities in the Mediterranean Sea. We focus on two species of waders that nest along the Mediterranean shores: the Pied avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) and the Black-winged stilt (Hi...

Very positive trend for Mediterranean Charadriifromes from 2011 to 2021. At the scale of the French Mediterranean coastline, the monitoring protocol implemented since 2011, has enabled us to pinpoint the trends and productivity of eight species of colonial Charadriiformes.

Résultats préliminaires d'un suivi GPS de la Cistude d'Europe dans un marais de l'Hérault, France

In 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus clade 2.3.4.4b became enzootic and caused mass mortality in Sandwich Tern Thalasseus sandvicensis and other seabird species across northwestern Europe. We present data on the characteristics of the spread of the virus between and within breeding colonies and the number of dead adult Sa...

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are one of the five major causes of biodiversity loss worldwide. Given their diversity and abundance, it is not feasible to act on all IAS. The EU Regulation 1143/2014 and the 2017 national IAS strategy provide a framework for preventing the introduction and spread of IAS and managing them. The Conservatoire d’Espaces n...

A bstract In 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus clade 2.3.4.4b became enzootic and caused mass mortality in Sandwich terns and other seabird species across northwestern Europe. We present data on characteristics of the spread of the virus between breeding colonies and the number of dead adult Sandwich terns recorded at bre...

For effective conservation, robust tools that can measure and predict spatio-temporal population variation are required, especially for species in steep decline, rarely encountered or difficult to detect, such as many amphibian species. This study focused on the relevance of the Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) and its component variables to assess...

Résumé L’Aigle de Bonelli est une espèce discrète dont les sites de reproduction, bien que décrits depuis les années 50, ne permettent pas d’avoir une image précise de la population réellement présente en France avant les années 80. Grâce au suivi exhaustif des sites, au baguage systématique des poussins depuis 1990 et au suivi télémétrique des adu...

By rapidly modifying key habitat components, habitat restoration is at risk of producing attractive cues for animals without providing habitats of sufficient quality. As such, individual fitness components, such as reproduction, could be reduced and restored habitats could become ecological traps. This risk notably appears by using artificial const...

Résumé L’Aigle de Bonelli est une espèce discrète dont les sites de reproduction, bien que décrits depuis les années 50, ne permettent pas d’avoir une image précise de la population réellement présente en France avant les années 80. Grâce au suivi exhaustif des sites, au baguage systématique des poussins depuis 1990 et au suivi télémétrique des adu...

L'aigle de Bonelli Aquila fasciata est en déclin sur l'ensemble de son aire distribution et compte, en 2021, 42 couples présents en France sur le pourtour méditerranéen. Il fait l'objet de Plans nationaux d'action depuis 1999 dont l'un des objectifs est la meilleure connaissance des domaines vitaux des couples. Nous avons analysé par la méthode des...

L’Aigle de Bonelli, Aquila fasciata, est l’une des espèces de rapace diurne les plus rares en France avec seulement 22 couples qui subsistaient en 2002. Suite à des études sur la démographie de l’espèce en France menées dans les années 2010-2015, nous avons entrepris ici de mettre à jour les connaissances sur la dynamique de la population française...

Le présent document constitue le second « rapport scientifique sur l’état de conservation des espèces et des habitats et sur les indicateurs de réussite des mesures compensatoires relatives au parc logistique portuaire de Port-La Nouvelle ». Il rassemble la synthèse des résultats acquis au cours des années 2016 à 2021.

From 1994, the rare and endangered breeding bird survey centralizes and publishes results of national monitoring schemes of some 50 species for which recent population dynamics are known thanks to exhaustive, or near-exhaustive monitoring. Some of them are new breeders in France with increasing populations and others are either confined, rare, thre...

Le Triton crêté, espèce patrimoniale et indicatrice de l’évolution des zones humides, présente une répartition méditerranéenne très relictuelle où l'espèce n'a pu se maintenir que dans quelques sites désignés comme des refuges glaciaires. En effet, l’espèce, comme l’ensemble du cortège d’amphibiens qui peuple les mares méditerranéennes, sont partic...

The processes underlying macroecological gradients in body size are widely debated, in part because their intraspecific variability remains poorly described even in well-studied taxa such as vertebrates. In this study, we investigated how climate, habitat, genetic lineage and sex explain body size variations in French populations of the European po...

Cal for papers. Second international symposium on the Bonelli's Eagle: 24 & 25 September 2020, Montpellier, France Dear colleagues, Ten years after the first international symposium on the species in France, we propose a new symposium on 24 and 25 September 2020 to review the state of conservation of the species and the actions carried out over th...

The rare and endangered breeding bird survey centralizes and publishes results of national monitoring schemes of some 70 species for which recent population dynamics are known thanks to exhaustive, or near-exhaustive monitoring. Some of them are new breeders in France with increasing populations and others are either confined, rare, threatened, or...

Un premier inventaire des enjeux de biodiversité sur le domaine terrestre du Conservatoire du littoral en Languedoc-Roussillon avait été réalisée par le CEN L-R au cours des années 2007-2008. Au vu du nombre d’études produites depuis sur différents sites du Cdl, il a paru pertinent de rééditer dix ans plus tard une synthèse des données sur les enje...

Seven species of eagle breed in France: Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), Lesser Spotted Eagle ( A. pomarina), Bonelli’s Eagle (A. fasciata), Booted Eagle ( Hieraaetus pennatus ), short- T oed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus), Osprey (Pandion haliaetus ) and White- T ailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla ). Populations of all species have increased since the...

Dans le cadre du plan national d’actions (PNA) en faveur de l’Aigle de Bonelli, une des actions prioritaires est mise en œuvre depuis 2017, à savoir l’identification des zones d’erratisme de l’espèce par le suivi télémétrique. En effet, le taux de mortalité élevé des juvéniles et la découverte d’une nouvelle zone d’erratisme au cours du PNA précéde...

Seven species of eagle breed in France: Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), Lesser Spotted Eagle (Aquila pomarina), Bonelli’s Eagle (Aquila fasciata), Booted Eagle (Hieraaetus pennatus), Short-toed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus), Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) and White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla). Populations of all species have increased since the...

Un bilan complet de la stratégie et des actions du plan national de conservation et de l'évolution de la population de l'aigle de Bonelli en France est présenté. Après un fort déclin des années 1960 au début des années 2000, l'espèce reconquiert lentement le territoire avec 32 couples en 2015.

After World War II, twenty-nine coastal Salinas (122 km 2), located in the vicinity of coastal lagoons and in deltas, were exploited along the Mediterranean coastlines in South France. Today, only five of these are still actively producing salt, currently representing 175 km 2. Concomitant with the abandonment of many of the smaller Salinas, the la...

Conservation status, distribution, threats, conservation actions and numbers of the eagles species in France.

The rare and endangered breeding bird survey centralizes and publishes results of national monitoring schemes of some 70 species for which recent population dynamics are known thanks to exhaustive, or near-exhaustive monitoring. Some of them are new breeders in France with increasing populations and others are either confined, rare, threatened, or...

Rare and endangered breeding bird survey in France in 2014. The rare and endangered breeding bird survey centralizes and publishes results of national monitoring schemes of some 70 species for which recent population dynamics are known thanks to exhaustive, or near-exhaustive monitoring. Some of them are new breeders in France with increasing popul...

If the negative effects of road networks on biodiversity are now recognized, their role as barriers, habitats or corridors remain to be clarified in human altered landscapes in which road verges often constitute the few semi-natural habitats where a part of biodiversity important for ecosystem functioning may maintain. In human-dominated landscape,...

The Rare and Endangered Breeding Bird Survey attends to centralizing and publishing results of the national monitoring schemes of some 70 species for which recent population dynamics are known. Some of them are new breeders in France with increasing populations and others are either confined, rare, threatened, or endangered breeding birds. This 201...

Since 1994, the rare and endangered breeding bird survey attends to centralize and publish results of national monitoring schemes of some 70 species for which recent population dynamics are known. Some of them are new breeders to France with increasing populations and others are either confined or rare breeding birds. Two new species – Whooper Swan...

L'Aigle de Bonelli est aujourd'hui le rapace le plus menacé de France avec à peine 30 couples reproducteurs contre près de 80 dans les années 1960. Cette forte décroissance des effectifs, qui a atteint son point critique en 2002 avec 22 couples, a pu être stoppée grâce à la mise en œuvre d'actions de conservation et en particulier grâce à un plan d...

La faune mammalogique de Camargue a fait l’objet d’une récente synthèse (Poitevin et al. 2010) qui a permis de mettre à jour l’état des connaissances au travers de :  une importante recherche bibliographique (plus de 300 références) ;  la participation de 286 naturalistes et de toutes les structures de conservation de Camargue ;  la compilation...

Whilst biological traits of river macroinvertebrates show unimodal responses to geographic changes in habitat conditions in Europe, we still do not know whether spatial turnover of species result in distinct combinations of biological traits for pond macroinvertebrates. Here, we used data on the occurrence of 204 macroinvertebrate taxa in 120 ponds...

The implementation of the European Water Framework Directive revealed the necessity to develop new tools designed for freshwater ecosystems monitoring. As a new assessment approach employing invertebrate monitoring, three arti�cial substrates (two benthic and one pelagic) were tested for 7, 14, 21 and 35 days of exposure in a motorway retention pon...

The Important Areas for Ponds (IAPs) concept was developed to raise awareness of geographic regions that support ponds of national or international biodiversity importance, and help focus strategies for pond monitoring, protection and appropriate management and creation. Ponds are vitally important for freshwater biodiversity and particularly recog...

Entre terre et eau, la Camargue offre une mosaïque de paysages et d’habitats permettant à près de 43 espèces, soit la moitié de la faune mammalienne française de coexister au sein de ce territoire d’exception. Cet ouvrage est le premier à proposer un état des lieux de l’histoire et de l’évolution des mammifères en Camargue au travers de textes expo...

There is growing awareness in Europe of the importance of ponds, reflecting the increasing understanding of the contribution that they make to aquatic biodiversity and catchment functions. Collectively, ponds support as many species as rivers or lakes, including many which are rare or threatened, and they are increasingly seen as able to provide ec...

Since the passing of the water law in 1992, French highway companies have built many stormwater retention ponds alongside roads in order to collect road runoff and prevent crossed landscape from pollution. These small wetlands have been rapidly colonised by wildlife despite their attested contamination by road by-products such as trace metals, hydr...

The aim of this work was to study, by an in toto immunohistochemical technique, the expression pattern of the heat shock protein, Hsp70, in the widely used bioindicator species Cloeon dipterum (Linnaeus 1761) (Ephemeroptera, Baetidae), living in a motorway retention pond. All sampling and measurements have been performed from March 2002 to March 20...

Landscape has never been as altered by urbanization and road development as it occurred during the XXth century. Wetlands have been greatly affected by these transformations that leaded to a decrease by about 90 % of their number in Europe. In order to avoid the contamination of water resource from road traffic pollution, the French water law, vote...

Water and its protection against pollution is an urgent priority for all countries around the world. In that context, France, through its Water Law in 1992 obliged the motorway companies to build stormwater retention ponds along roads in order to protect the water resource from transport pollution and to control water flow during rainstorms. We pro...

The European Directive on urban wastewater treatment voted in 1991, compelled industries to deal with their wastewater. As a result, highways companies had to dig stormwater detention ponds alongside roads mainly in order to catch and treat road runoff. These stormwater ponds were quickly and largely colonised by aquatic organisms while they were o...

It has often been argued that forced copulation (FC) or rape is an adaptive behaviour that increases fitness of males who would otherwise have little access to females (Thornhill & Palmer 2000). However, FC could also be a non-adaptive behaviour occurring in unusual contexts. FC has been extensively studied in non-human mammals (Smuts & Smuts 1993)...

The Crustacean Fauna (Branchiopoda, Copepoda) of Shallow Freshwater Bodies in Iceland. Scher O., De-faye D., Korovchinsky N. M., Thiéry A. – A survey of shallow freshwaters of Iceland was conducted in June and July 1996. The 34 stations prospected were rainpools, ditches, wetlands. The composition of their crusta-cean communities, investigated by q...