Pyrenees - Science topic

QUOTATIONS / CITATIONS : "Knowledge of Science, without conscience, is but the ruin of the soul [is the soul's perdition ...] Since, it is my feeling that Ignorance is the "mother "of all evils ; and Time is the "father" of truth. ("Science sans conscience, n'est que ruine de l'âme [...] Car, selon moi ; l'ignorance est mère de tous les maux ; et l...

A range of indices are available to calculate terrestrial habitat connectivity based on land-use/land-cover data. Two tools (Graphab and MiraMon) were used to create timeseries datasets (1987-2022) and build the pipeline to analyse trends in connectivity. Data4Land tool was developed to enrich LULC datasets with OpenStreetMap data. Habitat connecti...

Alpine treeline ecotones, when viewed up close, display considerable variation in spatial patterns, which have been associated with different responses to climate change. Two important dimensions of treeline‐ecotone spatial patterns are the abruptness of the change in tree height (“abrupt” vs. “gradual”) and the change in canopy cover (“discrete” v...

One of the central lessons of the literature on the invention of tradition is that historical symbols are always available for reinterpretation in a variety of ways. Yet, there are some facts that are still rooted in the incontrovertible logic of the human life span. The sixtieth anniversary of anything means that those who were active participants...

Confrontée aux changements globaux et à une crise profonde, le secteur agricole est aujourd'hui invité à évoluer et à reconsidérer les fondements de la seconde révolution agricole. Or, si les transformations envisagées visent souvent les circuits économiques et les techniques de production, c'est aussi la spatialité des activités agricoles et alime...

At the northwestern termination of the South Pyrenean Central Salient, thrust imbrication, detachment folding and diapirism are structurally and genetically related. The La Fueba imbricate system has been folded by the Mediano detachment anticline, while this fold connects with the Clamosa diapir. Together, this structural-stratigraphic trinity pro...

The Basque‐Cantabrian Pyrenees experienced Early Cretaceous rifting and latest Cretaceous to Cenozoic inversion, with the presence of prerift Upper Triassic Keuper salt influencing how deformation was accommodated. Considerable disagreement exists on the degree of decoupling of supra‐ and subsalt deformation, the amount of thin‐skinned translation...

Salt-detached fold-and-thrust belts have been described as having an extremely narrow cross-sectional taper, a regular structural spacing, and lack of a dominant structural vergence. However, detailed evaluation of several natural examples shows unclear structural geometries and intricate salt-sediment contacts. Geometries associated with these sys...

Documenting long-term snow cover changes at high spatial resolution is especially challenging in mountain environments due to limited high-elevation ground observations and the coarse resolution of current climate models. This paper presents a dataset of snow melt-out dates (SMOD) at 30-m spatial resolution for two periods—the 1990s (1985–1996) and...

Salt-detached fold-and-thrust belts have been described as having an extremely narrow cross-sectional taper, a regular structural spacing, and lack of a dominant structural vergence. However, detailed evaluation of several natural examples shows unclear structural geometries and intricate salt-sediment contacts. Geometries associated with these sys...

Laser ablation U–Pb single zircon geochronology was applied to four peraluminous granite and granodiorite samples from the Bassiès pluton in the Central Pyrenees (France) yielding a wide range of concordant ages from early Carboniferous (Tournaisian, 351 Ma) to early Permian (Artinskian, 285 Ma). Emplacement of the Bassiès pluton occurred increment...

A major goal of speciation research is identifying loci that underpin barriers to gene flow. Population genomics takes a ′bottom-up′ approach, scanning the genome for molecular signatures of processes that drive or maintain divergence. However, interpreting the ′genomic landscape′ of speciation is complicated, because genome scans conflate multiple...

Located in the southwestern corner of Europe, the Iberian Peninsula is separated from the rest of the continent by the Pyrenees Mountains and from Africa by the Strait of Gibraltar. This geographical position may have conditioned distinct selective pressures compared to the rest of Europe and influenced differential patterns of gene flow. In this w...

Concerned by the revolutionary violence that spread in Catalonia after the failed military coup of 17 and 18 July 1936 led to civil war, France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Quai d’Orsay) appointed veteran ‘front-line’ consuls in Barcelona. These consuls had already experienced revolutionary events during the Russian civil wars; however, their pri...

A detailed analysis of the conodont sequence in the Compte section, located in the Spanish Central Pyrenees, demonstrates an almost continuous biostratigraphical record for the Famennian sequence studied. Forty-seven conodont taxa have been identified allowing the identification of six lower and middle Famennian zones through the index taxa. The lo...

This research focuses on the work of journalist Carles Porta, in particular on the incident of a real crime in Tor, a small village in the Catalan Pyrenees. Porta has conducted nearly three decades of journalistic investigation, culminating in the production of Tor, la muntanya maleïda (“Tor, The Cursed Mountain”), a true crime documentary series....

This research focuses on the work of journalist Carles Porta, in particular on the incident of a real crime in Tor, a small village in the Catalan Pyrenees. Porta has conducted nearly three decades of journalistic investigation, culminating in the production of Tor, la muntanya maleïda (“Tor, The Cursed Mountain”), a true crime documentary series....

Many closely related species continue to hybridise after millions of generations of divergence. However, the extent to which current patterning in hybrid zones connects back to the speciation process remains unclear: does evidence for current multilocus barriers support the hypothesis of speciation due to multilocus divergence? We analyse whole-gen...

Paleoenvironments encapsulate climate characteristics and the hydrological, geological, biological & anthropic factors of the past. In a mountain range, paleoenvironments and the landscape overlap, ecosystems and relief hybridizes. The human footprint is relatively recent given the age of the biome in mountain areas, and it is challenging to percev...

To better understand the kinematics of landslides in mountainous areas, permanent GNSS receivers and reflectors monitored by an automated total station are sometimes installed. The challenge is to describe the surface displacements as accurately as possible with an adequate observation rate (from a few seconds to 1 or 2 hours or more). After a brie...

Nature-based adventure activity has become increasingly popular due to its positive impact on well-being. Activities, such as mountaineering, often incorporate thrill components and require tourists to master physical and technical skills. Guides can play a key role in improving tourists' experience and promoting environmental consciousness. This s...

Extreme hydroclimates impact sediment fluxes from mountainous catchments to the oceans. Given modern global warming, a challenge is to assess the sensitivity of erosion in mountainous catchments to extreme climate perturbations. Here, we reconstruct paleo‐sedimentary fluxes across an abrupt global warming, the Paleocene‐Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM...

La population d’Ours brun présente dans les Pyrénées fait l’objet d’un suivi annuel transfrontalier impliquant les services andorrans, espagnols et français. En France, l’OFB, par le biais du réseau Ours Brun (ROB), est chargé de cette mission. En 2024, les 3 593 indices indirects d’ours collectés dans le cadre de ce suivi transfrontalier permetten...

This study presents a versatile methodological framework, implemented as a Python-based tool called PoNHy (Potential for Natural Hydrogen), designed to assess hydrogen generation in serpentinization environments using geophysical and laboratory data. As a practical application, the approach robustness is demonstrated in the Mauleon Basin localized...

Salt tectonics concepts may help explaining relatively complex tectonosedimentary relationships in the reinterpretation of inverted rifted margins. The objective of this study is to develop a valid model from extension to inversion for the Jurassic-Cretaceous Tarascon basin in the northern Pyrenees, considering the role of salt in the observed stra...

Les modifications des régimes hydrologiques induisent des changements dans le fonctionnement des milieux aquatiques notamment en aval des aménagements hydroélectriques. Afin de réduire les impacts écologiques liés à ces modifications, des diagnostics environnementaux et des études de dimensionnement de mesures de réductions doivent être mis en œuvr...

Plate kinematic reconstructions of the boundary between Iberia, Adria microplates and Europe during Mid-Late Cretaceous deformation is disputed. At this time the collision in the Pyrenees Provence, the Eo-Alpine phase of subduction, and far-field inversion in Western Central Europe occurred when Africa began to converge northward. The tectonic rela...

Biological invasions have become a major cause of ecological and economic costs in many (agro-)ecosystems. Understanding the regulation of their local dynamics by resources limitation and natural enemies, i.e. ′bottom-up′ and ′top-down′ determinants, through inherently heterogenous environments stands as a critical challenge to provide efficient ri...

This study focuses on the Fourque massif, one of the thirty Variscan plutons outcropping along the Axial zone of the Pyrenees. It hosts a significant tungsten deposit that was actively mined until 1986. However, since the closure of the mine, no detailed geochemical or geochronological studies have been conducted until recent investigations in 2019...

In the valley of Espot in the central Iberian Pyrenees, two species of juniper, Juniperus communis and J. sabina , co-occur in the same habitats, showing a similar encroaching ability as prostrate shrubs expanding on former rangeland. Outside of this valley, however, J. communis is widespread from the regional to the Holarctic level whereas J. sabi...

The aim of this study is resolving uncertainties on the lithostratigraphy and chronostratigraphy of the non-marine Lower Cretaceous of El Montsec thrust sheet, which contains the most developed record of such facies in the central Pyrenees (Catalonia, Spain). The materials, traditionally known as “El Montsec Charophyte Limestones”, overlie upper Be...

Species distributions are shifting globally due to environmental and anthropogenic pressures, with mountain ecosystems among the most vulnerable. In such landscapes, the ability of species to track changing conditions is limited, placing narrowly distributed species at risk. As a mountain biodiversity hotspot in southwestern Europe, the Pyrenees ha...

Protura is a class of euedaphic microarthropods represented in France by 47 species belonging to 10 genera. In this paper data on 361 proturans collected in 40 localities of Southern France (Ardèche, Gard, Hérault, Alpes Maritimes, Var, Pyrénées areas and Corsica) are shown. Thanks to this data, three species have been added to the 47 already known...

Ranaviruses infect cold-blooded vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles and fish), causing amphibian mass mortality events worldwide. Frog Virus 3 (FV3) and Common midwife toad virus (CMTV) have been responsible for amphibian declines in the United Kingdom and Spain, respectively. The Pyrenees National Park (PNP) is a protected area in France, where nati...

Dendrogeomorphology has provided valuable insights for dating geomorphic events, but requires the challenging analyses of tree-ring records from highly disturbed trees. Deep learning algorithms have been successfully used to detect ring boundaries under normal tree growth conditions. Here, we test if deep learning can perform tree ring segmentation...

Environmental forcings have shaped landscapes and basins across geologic history, and Earth’s surface is projected to undergo rapid change in the near future amidst increasing climate extremes. Rivers are highly sensitive to climate and tectonic change, and understanding how fluvial systems respond to greenhouse climates in dynamic tectono-geomorph...

The Basque Country has an international responsibility for bird migration, playing a strategic role in their passage between the Pyrenees and the Atlantic Ocean. Two remarkable natural sites on its bushy coast, Abbadia (Hendaye) and Izadia (Anglet), have been monitored by a ringing protocol in September from 2020 to 2022. Their species richness was...

Acoustic recordings have emerged as a promising tool to monitor nocturnal bird migration, as it can uniquely provide species‐level detection of migratory movements under the darkness of the night sky. This study explores the use of acoustics to quantify nocturnal bird migration across Europe, a region where research on the topic remains relatively...

According to the IPCC reports, the effects of climate change are well present from several decades ago, and it is expected to become even more pronounced during the remainder of the twenty-first century. The river basin system is defined as a complex of interaction between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The interface between these ecosystems r...

The anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) is a sensitive marker for studying the spatial and temporal evolution of orogens. In weakly deformed rocks deposited in compressive contexts the AMS signal mostly reflects the preferential alignment and deformation of paramagnetic phyllosilicates during early layer parallel shortening (LPS) related to...

Ice caves are understudied environments within the cryosphere, hosting unique ice deposits valuable for paleoclimate studies. Recently, many of these deposits have experienced accelerated retreat due to global warming, threatening their existence. The A294 cave contains the world’s known oldest firn cave deposit (6100 years cal. BP), which is progr...

The escape and establishment of Iberian wild goats, Capra pyrenaica, from an enclosure in the 1990s marked the beginning of the recovery of the species in the Pyrenees. This population has occupied part of the Prepyrenees and has contacted another population reintroduced in France since 2014. It coexists with other wild ungulates, including the fer...

The orogenic evolution of the western Pyrenees and its relationship with ancient rift architecture are well-studied and therefore represent a natural laboratory for investigating the link between structural inheritance and the distribution of present-day seismicity. In this study, we use an automated method to detect and pick P and S waves from loc...

Changing snow regimes and warmer growing seasons are some climate factors influencing the productivity and growth of high-elevation forests and alpine treelines. In low-latitude mountain regions with seasonal snow and drought regimes such as the Pyrenees, these climate factors could negatively impact forest productivity. To address this issue, we a...

This work presents the results of the study of a paleontological group recovered in the Oilaskoa cave between 1981 and 1986. The location of this sit in the western end of the Pyrenees at 1036 meters of altitude and its isolation with respect to other accumulations of the same type, Oilaskoa a unique opportunity to get to know the population of Urs...

The Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe, is home to a distinctive freshwater fish fauna, predominantly composed of endemic species. This is a consequence of the prolonged isolation from western Europe caused by the Pyrenees, the diverse geological and climatic gradients, and the isolation of river basins. Freshwater and diadromous fishes have...

Metasomatism is a ubiquitous process in the Earth’s crust, exerting major controls on fluid, heat and mass transfer and rock deformation, and is commonly constituted by mineral replacement reactions. Different types of metasomatism may coexist and/or successively conceal each other in a given area. Deciphering the geochemical behaviour, regional ex...

Semilimax pyrenaicus, a terrestrial gastropod with a primarily Lusitanian distribution, is mainly confined to the Pyrenees and Ireland, with a few isolated populations in western France. It was first recorded in Schoten (Belgium) in February 2024. Further investigations confirmed the presence of a well-established, localized population, with differ...

The escape and establishment of Iberian wild goats, Capra pyrenaica , from an enclosure in the 1990s marked the beginning of the recovery of the species in the Pyrenees. This population has occupied part of the Prepyrenees and has contacted another population reintroduced in France since 2014. It coexists with other wild ungulates, including the fe...

The humanities are often criticised for lacking a way through from the complexity they reveal to the challenges they might hope to address. In the face of the accelerating biodiversity crisis, we present two projects that aim to respond to the limitations and lack of interdisciplinary conversations in conservation and in humanities research. At fie...

This study assessed the daily energy expenditure and activity of sheep in mountain pastures in the Pyrenees (Spain), using Global Positioning System (GPS) and accelerometer data. Sheep traveled an average of 9.6 km daily, and the average daily energy expenditure due to locomotion was 3.20 MJ.day⁻¹. Activity exhibited a bimodal grazing pattern, peak...

La plupart des petits mammifères (Rongeurs, Musaraignes, Muridés) ne possèdent pas tous un statut juridique. Cependant, quelques espèces sont protégées, et la prise en compte de ces espèces dans le cadre des projets pouvant avoir un impact sur les milieux naturels n’est pas toujours chose aisée. En effet, la biologie des petits mammifères protégés...

The latest animal phylum to be discovered, Micrognathozoa, constitutes a rare group of limnic meiofauna. These microscopic ‘jaw animals’ are among the smallest metazoans yet possess highly complex jaw structures. The single species of Micrognathozoa, Limnognathia maerski Kristensen and Funch, 2000, was first described from Greenland, later reported...

Naturally occurring hydrogen gas (H2) represents a potential source of clean energy. A promising mechanism for large-scale natural H2 generation is serpentinization of exhumed mantle material. We study this serpentinization-related H2 generation during rifting and subsequent rift-inversion orogen development using numerical geody-namic models. Serp...

Background This paper aims to present insights about the beneficial use of fire within a strategic and operational framework, providing actions for better adaptation to fire regime shifts in the face of climate change and land use changes. Supported by transdisciplinary analysis and aimed at supporting an actual regulation in the Aran (~ 600 km ² i...

The recovery of large carnivores in Europe raises issues related to sharing landscape with humans. Beyond technical solutions, it is widely recognized that social factors also contribute to shaping coexistence. In this context, scholars increasingly stress the need to adopt place‐based approaches by analysing how humans and wildlife interact and co...

The Mediterranean region provides a natural laboratory for studying complex deformation resulting from body forces and interactions between the convergence of the Africa and Eurasia plates since the Cretaceous. These interactions led to the formation of a mosaic of basins and orogenic domains, whose intrinsically complex evolution over time is stil...

Evaluating the relative contributions of local environmental versus regional spatial descriptors to the shaping of phytoplankton communities provides an understanding of the community dynamics of high mountain lakes. The present study elucidated the role of lake morphometric, physicochemical, biological, and spatial descriptors in determining the p...

Assessing how genetic diversity is spatially structured underlies many research questions in evolutionary ecology and contributes to understanding the factors implicated in population declines and extirpations, facilitating identification of conservation priorities and decision-making. In this study, we surveyed genomic diversity using genotyping b...

The Lachambre cave network (Eastern Pyrenees, France) is well suited to studying the interaction between vertical successions of low-gradient cave passages in the limestone and chronosequences of fluvial terraces in the adjacent valley. Investigations here focus on cave passages striking parallel to the Têt River, and on their topographic, geomorph...

The syrphid genus Eumerus Meigen, 1822 is one of the most speciose in the world. In the Ibero-Balearic area (including Andorra and the Spanish side of the Pyrenees), recent taxonomic studies have increased the knowledge of Eumerus in Europe. A high taxonomic diversity together with a complex morphology make species identification difficult in this...

How high topography can be sustained over long timescales in post‐orogenic mountain belts is a longstanding research question in tectonic geomorphology and geodynamics. Here we utilize the well‐documented orogenic paleo‐topography and spatial‐temporal exhumation patterns of the Pyrenee Mountains in a numerical modeling study investigating controls...

The Neolithization process introduced remarkable ecological impacts, especially in Mediterranean mountain areas. We generated a comprehensive sedimentary ancient DNA record from the central Pyrenees, spanning 12,200 to 1300 years before present, revealing the earliest continuous presence of sheep (6500 years before present) and cattle (5900 years b...

From the analysis of 542 moment tensor focal mechanisms in Iberia, active tectonic deformations and stresses were inferred by implementing different and complementary methodologies: FMC classification of the rupture type; composed focal mechanism based on the average seismic moment tensor; rotation angle between tensors estimates; Right Dihedra com...

The Mas d’Azil cave, located in southwestern France in the foothills of the Pyrenees, is a major site for the study and understanding of the European Upper Palaeolithic. The early Aurignacian levels (US4 and US5) have yielded 3 762 remains of small vertebrates, allowing to document the faunal communities in this border region during the MIS3 (c. 40...

The erosion of rocky coasts contributes to global cycles of elements over geological times and also constitutes a major hazard that may potentially increase in the future. Yet, it remains a challenge to quantify rocky coast retreat rates over millennia – a time span that encompasses the stochasticity of the processes involved. Specifically, there a...

The relationships between the serpentinized continental mantle in orogens, its geophysical signature at depth and hydrogen seepages are poorly understood. A petro‐physical modeling approach accounting for serpentinization shows that a large domain of serpentinized mantle (1,800 km²) is present in the northern Pyrenees. The serpentinization reached...

Key message The temperature sensitivity of maximum latewood density measurements in pine trees from a high-elevation site in the Spanish Pyrenees increases with tree age. Detrending modulates the intensity of the effect. Abstract Tree-rings are the prime archive for high-resolution climate information over the past two millennia. However, the accu...

Pine forests represent globally distributed conifers growing in a wide range of habitats within the Mediterranean basin. One example are the high-altitude mountain pine (Pinus uncinata) forests in the Pyrenees, which stand out for their high fungal sporocarps richness. Nevertheless, studies on the effects of forest management on sporocarps diversit...

The Axial Pyrenean Zone constitutes the axis of the Pyrenees, an Alpine orogen. The precambrian and paleozoic rocks outcropping in this zone underwent two orogenies (the Variscan and Alpine orogenies). Within this zone, distinguishing Variscan from Alpine structures represents a very complicated task due to the scarcity both of geochronological dat...

The liverwort Arnellia fennica has a circumarctic distribution with disjunct and scarce localities in the Alps, Carpathians, and Pyrenees. Within the Carpathians, it is only known from the Tatra Mountains (in Poland), where so far only four occurrences have been documented in the forest belt of the limestone part of the Western Tatras. The species...

Worldwide, the upper forest line has climbed over the past decades, shaping mountain landscapes in response to global changes. In European mountains, this recent trend is a continuation of the forest transition initiated in the mid-19th century, when forest extent was minimal. This study aimed to reconstruct the forest-line dynamics for the entire...

During the Pyrenees National Park's scientific days devoted to water, resources and biodiversity, the Conservatoire botanique national presented its work on high-altitude lakes. Diving inventories to provide accurate data on aquatic flora were presented, as well as collaborations with wildlife specialists and recent initiatives to conserve and prot...

The genus Erebia comprises numerous species in Europe. Due to preference of cold environments, most species have disjunct distributions in the European mountain systems. However, their biogeographical patterns may differ significantly. The Bright-eyed ringlet Erebia oeme is widespread in high-altitude grasslands of the European high mountains, henc...

Référence à citer: Prud'homme F. (coord.), 2025. Compte-rendu des premières rencontres internationales biodiversité des lacs des Pyrénées. Loudenvielle, Hautes-Pyrénées, France. 13 et 14 mai 2024. Conservatoire botanique national des Pyrénées et de Midi-Pyrénées et GIS Lacs des Pyrénées. 29 pages. ---------------------------------------------------...

The combined sedimentological and palaeoecological analysis of charophyte-rich carbonate microfacies is proven to be a useful methodology for the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of continental settings. However, the integration of these charophyte assemblages with geochemical proxies has not been explored, yet. In the present work, the charophyt...

We report here the presence in the Pyrenees of plants assignable to Petrosedum thartii based on current knowledge of the difficult yellow-flowered Petrosedum complex. Petrosedum thartii has not previously been reported from the Iberian Peninsula and the nearest known locations are in the Alps. However, this plant is quite common in the inland valle...

La limite entre les deux Catalogne fait partie de la frontière entre la France et l’Espagne établie en 1659 par le traité des Pyrénées. Parce qu’elle sépare des territoires de langue et de culture catalane, elle est souvent dénoncée comme illégitime par les indépendantistes catalans, officiellement au pouvoir dans la Communauté autonome depuis fin...

Boletin de la Asociacion Herpetologica Española (2024): 35(2). We describe a new case of the fungal pathogen Ophidiomyces ophidiicola detected in 2024 in the Pyrenees (Catalonia, North-East Spain) and affecting a new host belonging to the species Coronella girondica (Southern smooth snake).

The Cretaceous North Pyrenean hyperextended rift system recorded HT‐LP metamorphism in the pre‐ and syn‐rift sedimentary cover during lithospheric mantle exhumation. We describe and analyze for the first time the rocks exposed in the Gouffre Georges, a deep cave in the Lherz peridotite massif (Ariège, France). The cave walls expose the lithospheric...

Estudiamos la migración pos nupcial de aves a través de los Pirineos en los puertos de montaña de Somport y Portalet durante 2016 y 2017. Se siguieron cuatro especies: (aves planeadoras) abejero europeo Pernis apivorus, milano negro Milvus migrans y aves batiendo alas, aleteadoras o remeras (avión común Delichon urbicum y golondrina común Hirundo r...

This book is the analysis and study of the huge collection of pottery (54.600 sherds) uncovered in the excavations of the cave of Els Trocs (Huesca, Spanish Pyrenees) during the first six archaeological seasons and the Neolithic phases of the 2016 campaign. The results of this study are crucial to understand their archaeological context in the diff...

The origin of the obliquity of the structures at the eastern end of the central South-Pyrenean salient is investigated by means of Paleomagnetism. Earlier paleomagnetic data in the area are poorly distributed and insufficient to describe in detail the amount and age of vertical axis-rotations affecting the region. This work aims to address this iss...