Presentation

This site provides a list of species based on herbarium (5550 exsiccata) and field images (hundreds of images: landscapes and flora) harvested in Algerian Far East for thirty years.

How and why have I collected these data?

My professional route, parallel to my religious commitment, answers this question. Some pointers:

• Degree of Agronomy in 1973 (I.N.A., El Harrach, former Maison Carrée, Algiers).
• Acted as the Director of the Agriculture Sector of the "Crop Production" in the province of Annaba for 10 years (1973-1983).
• Graduate Thesis in Geography and Planning at the University of Montpellier III. The theme: the plain of Mafragh (Marsh Mkrada, East of Annaba) (1981).
• Lecturer at the University in 1983. Different courses, including botany and the environment. Participation in a wetland laboratory and publications with colleagues.
• 1990: Doctorate in University Physiology and Biology of Organisms and Populations, University Montpellier II (U.S.T.L.).
• Retreat since 2002 and participation with Algerian and Mediterranean universities and various works of the IUCN, which includes the red list of wetland species.

Available materials

50 to 60% of exsiccata and photos – that is to say the greater density - cover, primarily, what botanists call Numidia (Quezel & Santa 1962-1963), is the geographic division along the Tunisian border to the height Souk Ahras in the East, limited to the West at the base of Skikda and south to the mountains of Medjerda and Guelma.

The others are distributed from Numidia towards south between the regions of Guelma, El Harrouch, Constantine (in particular Jebel Ouahch), Tebessa Bir el Ater and Negrine, Khenchela, Batna (fortunately endowed with a national park: the Belezma) Ghoufi, Biskra, Ghardaïa and El Golea (now El Menaâ). The statement’s density is lower, but few botanists have covered or cover some of these areas.

It seems necessary to pinpoint the extension area of some species and, particularly in the High Plains, some families including Crucifereae; Indeed, this ecosystem is deemed to be a dispersal area (worldwide, more than 4% of the taxa of this family are present). In addition, the High Plains have many chotts or sebkhas, from which a major part of the flora originates.

Biogeographical interest

• This region of Algeria, because of the remoteness of the three universities existing before the country's independence, received only sporadically the visit by professional botanists. In addition, the region bordering Tunisia, was regarded, rightly or wrongly, as a little safe, with very few access roads, including the north because of the large number of marshes and lakes and in the South the density of forests. The risk of malaria in the North was not illusory, because at the end of the 19th century, the botanist H. Perraudière had died there at ... 30 years. This risk remained until the years succeeding the Second World War.
• After the independence, when the National Park of El Kala (PNEK = almost 80 000 ha) was born towards the 80’s because of the high number of migratory birds, the work of "botanists" was often limited to specific areas in which field investigations did not cover all the seasons and some areas considered "dangerous" (1992-2000). In addition, the PNEK and its margins, subjected to many pressures, including the Highway which crosses, the urbanization, agriculture, gradually sees little by little some of its Ecosystem floristically rich, dwindle or even disappear . And this despite the successive establishment of universities of Annaba, El Tarf, Skikda Guelma and Souk-Ahras, which could form botanists among the large number of available students.
• So we could "discover" new species in the region, present for example in Kabylia, unreported in Numidia, be it frankly alien and absent from the flora of Algeria: Is it not useful to keep track? In return, some species known there half a century in the region, have not been found or are endangered, their area of distribution is so reduced.

So many motives to leave traces in our floristic investigations in this area, to make them available, first off course for nationals, but also researchers from the scientific community, who frequently seek our assistance for a particular species and with whom we work and publish.

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