Sentinel lakes: a network for the study and management of mountain lakes in the French Alps and in Corsica. eco.mont (Journal on Protected Mountain Areas Research)|eco.mont Vol. 5 No. 1 5 1|

High-altitude lakes are vulnerable ecosystems that require protection and sustainability management, although their overallfunctioning is still poorly understood. In France protected area managers and scientists are cooperating to address this problem.Their results show the huge diversity of these altitude lakes and imply specificities in their functioning and in the way they respondto stressors. Multidisciplinary studies on these ecosystems, on their individual history and the stressors they face, need to be developedin a number of lakes, alongside long-term monitoring surveys. This is the objective of the Sentinel lakes network