In February, the LIFE SOS Crau Grasshopper project team is being strengthened with the addition of a trainee for a period of six months. Martin Meyer, a student on a Master’s degree in Life Sciences – Plants, Environment and Ecological Engineering at the University of Strasbourg, will study the vegetation of certain coussouls, the habitat of the Crau Plain Grasshopper.
The objectives of the training course, supervised by the Conservatoire d’espaces naturels de Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (Catherine Godefroid, Axel Wolff and Lisbeth Zechner) and the IMBE (Thierry Dutoit), are to characterise the vegetation in the Crau according to the season and different gradients of grazing on sites where the Crau Plain Grasshopper is still present, where it has disappeared and where reintroduction is envisaged.
The data collected will be cross-referenced with data from agro-pastoral surveys, an inventory of insectivorous birds in colonies – which could be significant predators – and monitoring of Crau Plain Grasshopper populations. All of this will help us to better understand the reasons that have contributed to its decline and to choose the right sites for the first reintroduction tests. Optimal vegetation and habitat management will be important for the successful reintroduction and the preservation of the species.
The data collected by Martin will also be used in a study of the evolution of the Crau Plain Grasshopper’s habitat since the 1980s via satellite images.
Welcome to Martin, to whom we wish an interesting and enriching internship!
Martin Meyer, jeune recrue du projet LIFE SOS Criquet de Crau
Finally you can observe them – for real! Or almost…
This spring, our team has prepared a whole programme to discover the Crau Plain Grasshopper
The first hatchings of Crau Plain Grasshopper in 2023 took place at the beginning of April and observations of the first juveniles are multiplying by the day!
She cuts, assembles, glues, paints and articulates pieces of paper. She sculpts organic figures, plants, animals, then animates them. Her works transpire a naturalist sensitivity at the “edge of the brush”.