ABSTRACT
As a European country, France is at the crossroad of several biogeographic areas and pathways. The landscape of France has been deeply modified during the last glaciation events. The flora and fauna of France are remarkably rich for a temperate and human-modified landscape, because of the combination of different climatic and biogeographic areas. This chapter presents a short account of biodiversity as well as provides large groups of organisms, signaling lacks or gaps in the knowledge and indicates resources to access the primary data. It details the different ecosystems comprising the species and also provides a few examples of organisms belonging to different groups and discusses the different biogeographic trends. The chapter emphasises the dynamics of the biota since the last quaternary climatic events, and shows how they evolved and how they could be modified in the future according to climatic change.
