Biodiversity

A place of your own in the middle of Nature.

Feel in harmony with this peninsula’s fauna and flora with over 600 species. Fall asleep to the sound of the ocean and let the scent of pine and eucalyptus trees sooth your breathing. You are a few steps from a shady forest, rare vegetation growing on dunes, brilliant blue lagoons and the quietude of salt flats.

In this haven for wildlife, you’ll see unique birds on trees and storks perched on the chimneys of Comporta, or seahorses and rays in the waters of the Sado and at Costa da Galé. So many roads to explore, holding hands with nature.

  • biodiversidade troia

Over 600 species that make biodiversity the differentiating factor of Troia Resort

Introduction

Biodiversity is a differentiating factor of TROIA RESORT; over 600 species have been listed, including:

  • 233 plant species;
  • 152 bird species
  • 12 mammal species
  • 11 reptile species
  • 4 amphibian species

207 organisms living in the intertidal area.

Even in the urban centre one can find species that are highly important in nature, including the pallid swift and the free-tailed bat, for which dedicated shelters were built after the tower they occupied was demolished.

Beaches

The Tróia peninsula is actually a gigantic sand dune, which was gradually formed over thousands of years.

At the edge, where the waves break, the first colonising plants such as the European searocket can be found. Then, on the embryonic dune, we find the Elymus farctus and the Otanthus maritimus. Next come the primary dunes, with tall ridges and only a few years of life, covered in Ammophila arenaria. Over the ridges there are the secondary dunes, several decades old, rich in aromatic shrubs. The further inland we go, the older the dunes are, sustaining larger bushes, such as the Lygos monosperma and the Juniperus communis, and even the stone pine.

In winter, flocks of small birds – sanderlings – swarm the shore and in spring, they migrate north, to the North Pole, to nest.

Caldeira

The Caldeira of Tróia is a lagoon which fills up and empties twice a day, unveiling the wetland and muddy bottoms. It forms a recess in the Sado estuary of the Tróia peninsula.

It is an area of great value that provides food and shelter to many species of waterfowl, such as the sanderling, bar-tailed godwit, herons and mergansers, and is thus an excellent site for birdwatching.

Caldeira and the surrounding pine forest are habitats that are a priority in terms of conservation at the European level; consequently, “Sado Estuary” was included in the Natura 2000 network.

Pine Forest

The pine forest that covers the oldest dunes in Tróia is mostly composed of maritime pine and stone pine, but it also includes plants such as the pistacia lentiscus, armeria maritima and corema album.

The two kinds of juniper – the juniperus phoenicea and the juniperus navicularis– some of which are over a century old, the lichens, the Linaria ficalhoana and the Ionopsidium acaule, two small rare plants which grow here, must be noted.

Estuary

The colony of bottlenose dolphins in the River Sado is unique in Portugal and is one of the very few in the whole of Europe having an estuary as its home. Tróia-Natura, a company of Sonae Capital, has helped with its conservation through several projects.

Along the banks of the peninsula of Tróia there are half immersed prairies covered in sea plants, which are actually nurseries and where emblematic species, like seahorses, cuttlefish and clams, are found.

Along the river Sado, upstream from the TROIA MARINA, the typical white sandy beach gives way to a pebble beach, with rich biodiversity, where one finds sea carrots, anemones, crabs, shrimp, whelks, sea snails, oysters, sea urchins, starfish and even mollusc and fish eggs, etc.

Documentary