Science at UM [S04-ep11]: Exotic Spa Guests in Juvignac
This week on "Science at UM," Andrea Reyes Camargo and Ilhan Ben Halima, master’s students 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 insect quarantine platform. A program broadcast 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 facility was built there, capitalizing on the benefits of the water from the Fontcaude spring, where water flows at a temperature ranging between 21 and 25°C. 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 acidic thermal water—in other words, rich in carbonic acid. The thermal baths opened the following year, but after only ten years of operation, their owner turned 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 on the site of the former thermal baths. Unfortunately, the facility could not weather the 2020 health crisis and closed its doors 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 have likely settled there permanently. Their names: Poecilia reticulata and Neocaridina davidi. While the two creatures are a delight to the eyes, it’s not certain they’re a delight for the local ecosystem.
Andrea Reyes Camargo and Ilhan Ben Halima are master’s students in the Ecology and Evolution track of the Ecosystem Biology program 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 program, we’re sticking with bugs—but this time, terrestrial ones. We invite you to visit PIQ, the insect quarantine facility on the Triolet campus, with Magali Eychenne from the Diversity, Genomes, and Microorganism-Insect Interactions Laboratory.
At UM Science, you’ve got the program—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
Tune in to the show “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9
