Abstract
The vegetation of Mediterranean temporary pools is characterized by the dominance of annual species with a perennial seed bank whose germination is cued with cyclic flooding and drying. Although small in size and patchy in the landscape they have a riche flora. They have however suffered much from habitat loss and degradation and many species specialized to this habitat have become rare and endangered. Among these species are found six annual Lythrum species in the South of France. The objectives of this thesis were to quantify the ecological niche of these species in order to inform management action for their conservation. Management of these ecosystems and species conservation depend on knowledge the ecology of regeneration and survival in the changing environment of this ecosystem. The first step here was to clarify the distribution of the six species in the Mediterranean region and in particular L. thesioides, a species thought to be extinct in the wild and rediscovered in three Mediterranean temporary pools in France since 1998, two of which are still visible. This was accompanied by a phylogenetic study of the relationships among these six species and 13 other species in the genus studied previously. Comparison of the regeneration niche illustrated the importance of several variables for germination, principally the optimal temperature that was different among the species and in particular for the very rare L. thessioides. Examination of the micro-niche of adult plants also revealed a clear differentiation of the species in terms of soil properties and less notably the presence and phenology of associated species. The combined results of this work have been used in the construction of a management action plan composed of several scenarios for the conservation of L. thessioides at its primary site of occurrence in the South of France.