Abstract Salinity and water regime have previously been recognised as the main environmental factors controlling the abundance of coastal submerged macrophytes in temporarily‐flooded marshes in the Camargue. The effects of these environmental variables, which are considered interrelated, are tested experimentally by subjecting experimental macrophyte communities from six temporarily flooded marshes to different levels of salinity (from 0 to 6 g/1 Cl − ). Communities subjected to high salinity levels (4 and 6 g/1 Cl~) showed a decrease in species richness and in biomass of all species involved. The species that most frequently dominate these communities, Chara áspera and Zannichellia pedunculata , are tolerant of salt and dominate over the entire salinity range. Three species groups can be distinguished based on the distribution of their biomass and centre of gravity of distribution over the salinity range: (1) non‐salt‐tolerant species, ‘glyco‐phytes’, (2) moderately salt‐tolerant species and (3) very tolerant species (‘halophytes’). A species ordination based on the experiments appeared to give results close to those previously obtained from field data.