She had already been spotted in November in Corsica, near Ajaccio.
But the discovery made by teams from the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanology in Marseille marks a first: the red algae
Lophocladia lallemandii
has taken hold on the French mainland coasts.
The discovery was made during a dive in the national park of Port-Cros, in the Var, to check the state of the large nacres, giant shells decimated by a bacterium.
“On the way up, we came across this seaweed which was forming unusual large spots.
We took samples and brought them back to our lab.
We were able to identify it
,” says Sandrine Ruitton, lecturer at the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanology.
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Lophocladia lallemandii
is one of the so-called "Lessepsian" species: originating in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, it arrived in the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal more than a century ago, following currents and transport. …
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