"UM , Science" [S04-ep11]: Exotic Spa Guests in Juvignac
This week on *A l’UM * Science, Andrea Reyes Camargo and Ilhan Ben Halima—a female and male student, respectively, in the master’s program in Ecosystem and Evolutionary Biology—talk to us about guppies and cherry shrimp found in the Juvignac hot springs. The report takes you to the quarantine station for insects. The show airs every Wednesday on Divergence FM 93.9.
This is a well-known walking route among Montpellier residents. The Juvignac Thermal Park, just a few kilometers from the city center, stretches between the banks of the Mosson River on one side and the Juvignac Golf Course on the other. It was in the 19th century that a spa resort was built there, capitalizing on the benefits of the water from the Fontcaude spring, where water flows at a temperature ranging from 21 to 25°. In 1812, the Montpellier Medical Society confirmed its therapeutic properties for people suffering from skin diseases, sciatica, or rheumatism. On June 30, 1846, a ministerial decree classified the Fontcaude spring as “acidulous thermal water”—in other words, water rich in carbonic acid. The thermal baths opened the following year, but after only ten years of operation, their owner turned his attention to another liquid: wine.
It wasn’t until March 1999 that a new decree from the Ministry of Employment and Solidarity authorized the town of Juvignac to make the water from Fontcaude available to its residents. In 2009, a new balneotherapy complex was built to replace the thermal baths. Unfortunately, the facility was unable to weather the 2020 health crisis and closed its doors once again in 2021. But the waters of the Juvignac thermal baths continue to attract interest, particularly from students at the Universities of Montpellier and Toulouse, who have been studying a pond in the park. And there they found two tourists from faraway lands who seem to enjoy the temperature of Fontcaude so much that they’ve likely settled there for good. Their names: Poecilia reticulata and Neocaridina davidi. While the two little creatures are a delight to the eye, it’s not clear whether they’re a delight for the local ecosystem.
Andrea Reyes Camargo and Ilhan Ben Halima are master’s students in biology, specializing in ecosystem evolution with a focus on ecosystems, and have just published the article“Evidence of an established population of Poecilia reticulata and Neocaridina davidi in metropolitan France”in the journal *Cybium*.
In the second half of the show, we’re sticking with critters—but terrestrial ones this time. We invite you to visit PIQ, the quarantine insect facility on the Triolet campus, with Magali Eychenne from the Diversity, Genomes, and Microorganism-Insect Interactions Laboratory.
At "UM : Science," here's the lineup—let's get started!
Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Reporting and editing: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Director: Alice Rollet
Listen to the show “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9
