paleontology in france: 200 years in the footsteps of ... · ered the founder of invertebrate...

Paleontology in France: 200 years in the footsteps of

Cuvier and Lamarck

Thomas Servais, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, Taniel Danelian, Bertrand Lefebvre,

Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud

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Thomas Servais, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, Taniel Danelian, Bertrand Lefebvre, Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud. Paleontology in France: 200 years in the footsteps of Cuvier and Lamarck. Palaeon-tologia Electronica, Coquina Press, 2012, 15 (1), pp.2E. <hal-00690034>

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Paleontology in France: 200 years in the footsteps of Cuvier and Lamarck

Thomas Servais, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, Taniel Danelian, Bertrand Lefebvre,and Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud

SUMMARY

Due to its richness in fossil localities and Fossil-Lagerstätten, France played amajor role in the 18th and 19th centuries in establishing paleontology and biostratigra-phy as scientific disciplines. The French naturalist and zoologist Cuvier (1769-1832)established the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology, and proposed theconcept of ‘catastrophism’ in geology. The naturalist Lamarck (1744-1829) is consid-ered the founder of invertebrate paleontology and biostratigraphy and an early pioneerin the studies of evolution, developing the idea of ‘transformism’ and creating the word‘fossil’, while his successor Blainville (1777-1850) was the first to use the word ‘paleon-tology’.

Based on this rich heritage, numerous French scientists strengthened paleontol-ogy as an important discipline during the 19th and 20th centuries. Paleontology waspresent at the universities of most major French cities, as documented by the rich col-lections in over 50 natural history museums and university collections. The most signif-icant paleontological collection is that housed in the Muséum National d’HistoireNaturelle (MNHN) at Paris that currently hosts the largest research unit in paleontologyof France with over 100 scientists, curators and technicians. The second largest collec-tion (and the largest in terms of invertebrate fossils) is housed at the University ofLyon1, where the most important university paleontology research team is present.About 250 professional paleontologists are currently working in research units that are

Thomas Servais. FRE 3298 Géosystèmes, CNRS-Université Lille1, F-59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France [email protected] Antoine. ISE-M Montpellier, UMR 5554 Institut des Sciences de l'Évolution (ISEM), CNRS-Université Montpellier2, F-34095 Montpellier Cedex, France [email protected] Danelian. FRE 3298 Géosystèmes, CNRS-Université Lille1, 59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France [email protected] Lefebvre. UMR 5276 Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon, Terre, Planètes, Environnement, CNRS-Université Lyon1-ENSL, F-69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France [email protected] Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud. AMAP (Botanique et Bioinformatique de l'Architecture des Plantes)UMR 5120 CNRS-CIRAD, F-34398 Montpellier cedex 5, France [email protected]

Servais, Thomas, Antoine, Pierre-Olivier, Danelian, Taniel, Lefebvre, Bertrand, and Meyer-Berthaud, Brigitte, 2012. Paleontology in France: 200 years in the footsteps of Cuvier and Lamarck. Palaeontologia Electronica Vol. 15, Issue 1; 2E:12p;palaeo-electronica.org/content/2012-issue-1-articles-2/79-palaeontology-in-france

SERVAIS ET AL.: PALEONTOLOGY IN FRANCE

mostly affiliated to the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), in public orprivate museums, or in the numerous natural parcs.

A significant generation change took place in the early 2000s, with the retirementof the paleontologists recruited in the 1960s and 1970s, that were often specialized inalpha-taxonomy and stratigraphy, and the arrival of a young generation of scientiststhat attempts to answer more ‘modern’ questions, such as global (climate) change, bio-diversity, or evolution. This new generation of paleontologists faces modified fundingschemes with project-based supporting structures in a more and more competitiveenvironment.

In the present paper we attempt to summarize the current situation of paleontol-ogy as a discipline in the very complex academic and scientific context of France. Aftera short overview on the history of French paleontology in the last centuries, a synopsison institutions and funding agencies is presented briefly. The major research depart-ments and their research themes are then described, together with the most importantcollections, the paleontological associations, journals, and databases, etc. Paleonto-logical training possibilities and job opportunities, in particular in academia, are nextdocumented, concluding with a summary of the prospects of the discipline.

HISTORY OF FRENCH PALAEONTOLOGY

Fossil localities in France

France is often considered as the birthplace ofpaleontology (not only by the French!), withGeorges Cuvier as the founding father of the disci-pline. The large number of important fossil locali-ties that were easily accessible to the first naturalscientists was of great importance for the earlydevelopment of paleontology as an independentscientific field. Outcrops of a wide variety of geo-logical epochs, comprising all intervals of the strati-graphic column from the Precambrian to theQuaternary, can be found in France, although Pre-cambrian sedimentary rocks are poorly preservedand therefore Precambrian paleontology neverreally developed. The first French geoscientistsconcentrated on spectacular fossil localities,including many Fossil-Lagerstätten, mostly fromMesozoic and Cenozoic rocks (Figure 1). Amongthe most famous Konservat-Lagerstätten are thoseof Montceau-les-Mines (Upper Carboniferous), LaVoulte-sur-Rhône (Middle Jurassic), Canjuers andCerin (Upper Jurassic), and the Cenozoic sites ofCreil, Menat, Coiron and Sansan.

The abundant presence of fossils in a largenumber of localities of the Paris Basin, easilyaccessible from Paris and other major French cit-ies, allowed the early development of French geol-ogy and paleontology beginning in the 16th century,and its growth in the late 18th and the 19th centu-ries. Many international geological series andstage names have been defined in France: theterm Jurassic comes from the French-Swiss JuraMountains, the Devonian stage of the Givetian hasbeen defined from the French-Belgian Ardennes

Mountains. Many Mesozoic and Cenozoic standardstages were named after French localities bearingnumerous fossil groups useful for stratigraphy,notably due to the seminal work of Alcide d’Orbigny(1802-1857). Among them are in the Jurassic:Hettangian, Sinemurian, Toarcian, Bajocian; in theCretaceous: Berriasian, Valanginian, Hauterivian,Barremian, Aptian, Albian, Cenomanian, Turonian,Coniacian, Santonian, and Campanian; and in theCenozoic: Lutetian, Aquitanian, and Burdigalian.

There is no doubt about France having playeda prominent role in the early history of paleontologyas a scientific discipline. As early as in the middleof the 16th century, the famous Renaissance potterBernard Palissy (c. 1510 - c. 1589) was among thefirst to understand the nature of fossils and enunci-ate their origin: “Pourquoi trouve-t-on tant de frag-ments de coquilles entre deux couches de pierres,sinon parce que ces coquilles déjà déposées sur laplage y furent recouvertes d'une terre rejetée par lamer, laquelle terre est venue ensuite à se pétrifi-er?” (Récepte véritable, La Rochelle, 1563).

Cuvier and Lamarck

In the late 18th century, as the bases of mod-ern scientific concepts were established, Francebenefited from and contributed to the large culturaland intellectual exchanges within western Europe.It was Georges Cuvier (Jean Léopold Nicolas Fré-déric Cuvier (1769-1832); Figure 2), born in Mont-béliard (a French speaking city in eastern Francethat was at the time of Cuvier’s birth part of theGerman duchy of Würtenberg) who is today gener-ally considered as the founder of comparativeanatomy and paleontology as scientific disciplines.After studying theology at the University of Tübin-

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PALAEO-ELECTRONICA.ORG

gen (Germany), he left for Stuttgart where he stud-ied natural sciences. He moved to France wherehe got a professorship at the Muséum Nationald’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in 1802. He presentedhis first paleontological studies at the Académiedes Sciences since 1796, establishing the widelyused concept of “catastrophism”. With his four vol-umes on the Recherches sur les ossemens fos-siles de quadrupèdes, published in 1812, Cuviercan be considered as the originator of vertebratepaleontology. It was also Cuvier who first definedthe Jurassic as a geological period.

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de laMarck (1744-1829; Figure 3), considered as one ofthe founders of biology as life science, was notonly the father of “transformism” (a pre-Darwinianevolutionary concept), but he was also the founderof invertebrate paleontology. It was also Lamarckwho created the word fossile as it is generally usedand accepted today. Lamarck was a student atParis of Bernard de Jussieu (1699-1777), and healso benefited from the protection of Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1707-1788). Hewas surrounded by the most important French nat-ural scientists of the 18th century and as the firstscientist working on the evolution of life was also

the precursor of Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Inhis Système des Animaux sans vertèbres (pub-lished in 1801) Lamarck introduced the classifica-tion of numerous fossil invertebrates, and hepublished subsequently the series of Mémoires surles fossiles des environs de Paris. All these studiesmade him also one of the first scientists working onbiostratigraphy and paleoclimatology.

The 19th century: France as a center of paleontological research in the world

Henri-Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (1777-1850) was a student of both Cuvier and Lamarck,but also of the famous zoologist Etienne GeoffroySaint-Hilaire (1772-1844). Blainville took over thechair of Cuvier at the museum in Paris in 1832,who in turn became his biggest scientific enemy. Itwas Blainville who created the word paléontologiein 1822 to design the new scientific discipline dedi-cated to fossil organisms.

Marin Jacques Louis Defrance (1758-1850)collaborated with the above mentioned scientists.He established important palaeontological collec-tions from Normandy and from the Paris Basin andwas one of the first to investigate the conditions offossilisation.

FIGURE 1. The "dalle à ammonites" is the most famous fossil locality of the Réserve Naturelle Géologique de HauteProvence. A slab of 320 m2 shows 1550 ammonites of the species Coroniceras multicostatum, up to 70 cm in diam-eter, indicating an early Jurassic age. Photograph by Taniel Danelian.

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Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) was a min-eralogist, geologist, zoologist and paleontologist,and is considered, together with Cuvier, as one ofthe founders of stratigraphic paleontology. His son,Adolphe Théodore Brongniart (1801-1876) isclearly considered to be the originator of the disci-pline of paleobotany in France, as he followed andadapted the studies of Kaspar Maria Sternberg(1761-1838) in Bohemia and Ernst Friedrich vonSchlotheim (1765-1832) in Germany. A.T.Brongniart published the first classification and dis-tribution of fossil plants, with comparisons to theirnearest recent relatives, in his Histoire des végé-taux fossiles (1828-1837).

Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny (1802-1857) hada specific interest in marine organisms; he coinedthe term “foraminifères” (foraminiferans) in 1825.D’Orbigny started the ambitious publicationPaléontologie française, a series containing over4000 pages and 1440 lithographic plates. He isconsidered to be the founder of micropaleontologyand he promoted not only biostratigraphic paleon-tology (Prodrome de Paléontologie Strati-graphique, 1849) but also paleogeography, inparticular for the Mesozoic.

Many other important paleontologists workedduring the same periods and in the following dec-ades. It is impossible to provide here a comprehen-sive list, and the reader is referred to Gayet andBabin’s (2007) alphabetical index of key paleontol-ogists to have a more complete view. Among thesignificant names of the early 19th century thatmust be mentioned, Hardouin Michelin (1787-1867) worked on several invertebrate fossil groupsand co-founded the Société géologique de Francein 1830, of which he was the first treasurer. Marcelde Serres (1780-1862) was a professor of geologyat the University of Montpellier, working on humanpaleontology and fossil mammals. He was one ofthe scientists who defined the Quaternary system.Edouard Lartet (1801-1871) was a pioneer in pre-history and human paleontology, finding the firstfossil primate in 1837 (Pliopithecus, middle Mio-cene of Sansan, SW France), subsequently prov-ing that men lived together with extinct mammals(Aurignac Cave, SW France; Nouvelles recherchessur la coexistence de l'homme et des grands mam-mifères fossiles, 1861), and discovering the firstCro-Magnon skeletons in Les Eyzies, SW France.

FIGURE 2. Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric CUVIER,known as Georges Cuvier (1769 Montbéliard - 1832Paris), who established the scientific disciplines ofcomparative anatomy and paleontology. Portrait byMattheus van Bree.

FIGURE 3. Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet,chevalier de LAMARCK, known as Jean-Baptiste deLamarck (1744-1829), who contributed to the classifi-cation of invertebrates, a term he coined, and an earlyproponent of evolutionary studies. Statue by LéonFagel in front of the Place Valhubert entrance of theJardin des Plantes in Paris.

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Lartet is also known as the founder of the termNéolithique.

The 20th century

The 19th century was the period when mostprofessor chairs were founded at the major univer-sity towns in France. But it was only in the 20th

century, and particularly during the 1960s that uni-versity research was promoted extensively, withthe creation of numerous universities in almost allmajor towns in France. This development wasclearly based on the rapid and enormous economicgrowth in western Europe that is today paralleled inChina with the current development of paleontol-ogy in that country (Shuhai Xiao et al., 2010). Geol-ogy courses were launched at most publicuniversities, and paleontology classes were estab-lished in almost all university towns. In the last partof the 20th century, paleontology strongly shiftedfrom geology departments to biology and life sci-ence departments. Classical geological questions(such as biostratigraphy) became less attractive,and have been replaced by more modern ques-tions about global (climate) change or (erosion ofmodern) biodiversity and evolution linked to humanpressure.

It is impossible to list all major actors ofFrench paleontology of the 20th century, and only afew names are given here: Georges Deflandre(1897-1973) was clearly the most important micro-paleontologist, working on almost all fossil groupsand considered a pioneer in using the ScanningElectron Microscope as early as 1952. Jean Cuvil-lier (1899-1969) was an important biostratigrapherwho founded in 1958 the journal Revue de Micro-paléontologie. Jean Piveteau (1899-1991) was oneof the most important vertebrate paleontologists,working also extensively on human origins. Hecoordinated between 1952 and 1961 the ten vol-umes of the Traité de Paléontologie. As a collabo-rator of Piveteau and his Traité, Léon Moret (1890-1972) published the textbooks Manuel de Paléon-tologie Animale between 1940 and 1966 and Man-uel de Paléontologie Végétale between 1943 and1964. These are important textbooks that wereknown and extensively used by most paleontologystudents of these years. Henri Tintant (1918-2002)was also a major invertebrate paleontologist. Hestarted his career at Montpellier, but worked mostof the time at the University of Burgundy at Dijon,where he developed the studies of quantitativepaleontology, starting the “Dijon school” on biomet-rical studies.

In the field of paleobotany, France alsobecame a leading actor. At the turn of the twentiethcentury, Bernard Renault (1836-1904), FrançoisCyrille Grand-Eury (1838-1917), René Zeiller(1847-1915) and the Bertrands, father and son,(1851-1917 and 1879-1944) counted among thebest paleobotanists of their time. B. Renault real-ized some of the finest anatomical studies of petri-fied plants and fungi from Paleozoic fossils hecollected in his native region of Autun. He deservesspecial mention regarding the poor conditionsunder which he accomplished his research at theMuseum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris. Morerecently, Edouard Boureau (1913-1999) edited thefour volumes of the "Traité de Paléobotanique"(1964-1975). He is also known for his work onwood anatomy and later in his career, on Precam-brian microfossils. He contributed to the foundationof the International Organisation of Palaeobotany.Jeanne Doubinger (1921-1994) can be consideredbeing one of the French pioneers of paleopalynol-ogy, working on Upper Paleozoic spores and pol-len. A more complete history of paleobotanical and(paleo-)palynological studies in France has beenpresented by Alpern et al. (1968).

INSTITUTIONS

Natural History Museums and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle

The rich collections of the French paleontolo-gists, collected from France and from many foreigncountries, are housed in a great number of places,among them not only public museums, but alsouniversities and private collections.

The most important collection of fossils isclearly the one housed in the Muséum Nationald’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) at Paris, one of themost prominent collections in the world, togetherwith those from the Natural History Museum inLondon or the Naturkundemuseum in Berlin. TheMNHN is a member of the national museums ofFrance and has a particular status.

Most of the other “Natural History Museums”are not national museums, but mostly directed bythe towns or the political departments or regions.They therefore depend on the budget of local orregional councils. There are over 50 such local orregional museums, present in many French cities.Some of these museums house large animal and/or mineral collections, but only very few fossils (themuseum at Chartres has only a single type speci-men, for example), whereas others store tens ofthousands of fossil specimens, that are more or

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less well curated and stored. Among the mostimportant “city museums” are those of Lille, Lyonand Toulouse, with large paleontological collec-tions. The keepers in these museums are mostlytrained curators with a background in natural sci-ences, sometimes with a Master or even a PhDdegree in paleontology. The main objective ofthese “city museums” is the exhibition of parts ofthe collections to the public. Scientific research isusually limited in these collections, but they are,however, open to the scientists who wish to consultthe specimens.

The MNHN plays a particular role. This veryold institution (Cuvier, Lamarck and many otherscientists worked here) not only houses the largestpaleontological collection, but it also hosts the larg-est research unit dedicated to paleontology inFrance, with over 100 scientists, curators and tech-nicians. The MNHN includes different departments.The Earth History Department, currently directedby a paleontologist, integrates the Geology, Pale-ontology, and Cosmochemistry sections, thathouse the geological/paleontological, paleontologi-cal and meteorite collections, respectively near theJardin des Plantes.

The collections related to human paleontologyare housed in another department and anotherinstitute (Institut de Paléontologie Humaine) in aremote building.

The collections of the paleontology depart-ment of the MNHN are the most important collec-tions in France for vertebrate paleontology, andalthough the research team of the museum (cur-rently grouped with the paleontology department ofthe University Pierre et Marie Curie, UPMC, Paris6) includes all sub-disciplines of paleontology(micropaleontology, paleobotany, palynology, inver-tebrate paleontology, etc.), a major research focusof the MNHN paleontological team is the study ofvertebrate paleontology, with a very high interna-tional visibility on early vertebrates (including jaw-less fish and early tetrapods), mammals, andphylogenetics.

University departments and the CNRS

The universities of most major cities includeddepartments of geology and paleontology. Many ofthese departments had professorships in paleon-tology. Most of these universities are public univer-sities, but some are private institutions, mainlyengineering schools.

Many of these universities established theirown collections. Some of these “university collec-

tions” are today very important in term of number offossils. The most important university collection isthat of the University of Lyon1, which is in fact themost important collection of invertebrate fossils inFrance (see below). Some “university collections”are no longer curated, because paleontologists areno longer active in these institutions. This has let inthe past and may lead in the future to serious pres-ervation problems, as many universities do notunderstand the value of the paleontological collec-tions. Some of these collections are housed in pri-vate universities, and are thus not necessarilyaccessible to the scientists who wish to consult thetype specimens.

The Centre National de la Recherche Scienti-fique (CNRS) was founded in 1939 to boostresearch in French universities. It covers almost allfields of scientifical research and employs about30000 people, with over 10000 research scientistson permanent positions. Many university researchdepartments include “mixed research units” (UnitéMixte de Recherche, “UMR”) linked to the CNRS.These research units are mixed in the sense thatthey are constituted of both university and CNRSstaff (both depending on the Ministry of Researchand Higher Education). In this way, many universitydepartments house both teaching and researchstaff (professeurs and maîtres de conférences) andCNRS scientists (directeurs de recherche andchargés de recherche), but also research techni-cians, engineers and administrators from both theuniversity and the CNRS.

The re-organisation of the CNRS in the late2000s let to the situation that the paleontologistsare today affiliated with at least three distinctCNRS institutes: the Institut National des Sciencesde l’Univers (INSU, with special focus on Earth andPlanetary Sciences), the Institut Ecologie et Envi-ronnement (INEE, a highly multidisciplinary Insti-tute dedicated to research on Biodiversity andEcological-Environmental questions), and the Insti-tut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales (INSHS).The creation of larger mixed research units(“UMR”) in the last decades resulted in manysmaller paleontology research units disappearingin the same interval.

For various reasons, it is difficult to explain theorganization of paleontological research in all theFrench CNRS and university teams, and only avery simplified description is provided here. Inaddition, the affiliations and the boundaries of eachresearch unit move constantly as all researchdepartments are evaluated every four or five years;

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the picture below is thus only a momentary snap-shot.

Currently, six CNRS research units hostteams that include more than ten paleontologists.Two of these units are affiliated to both the INEE(primary affiliation) and the INSU (secondary affilia-tion) of the CNRS:

• The largest paleontology research unit,based at the MNHN and at the UniversityPierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), coversalmost all scientific fields of paleontology(see above);

• The research unit “Biogéosciences” at theUniversity of Burgundy at Dijon has a tradi-tion in Mesozoic and Quaternary paleon-tology; it is specialized in “macroevolution”and is clearly a world-leading group inquantitative paleontology.

Two other larger research units are affiliatedto the INSU (with a second affiliation to the INEE),and particularly related to its Earth Science divi-sion:

• The Earth Science department of the Uni-versity of Lyon1 and of the Ecole NormaleSupérieure (ENS) de Lyon hosts the larg-est paleontological research team in aFrench geology department. The paleon-tologists from this department are micropa-leontologists and invertebratepaleontologists, but also vertebrate pale-ontologists, and palaeobotanists, workingtraditionally in close collaboration with sed-imentologists. Because the Lyon1-ENSearth science department is a world lead-ing research unit on geochemistry, the bio-geochemical applications in paleontologydid particularly well develop at Lyon duringthe last decades. The university Lyon1houses the largest collection of fossil inver-tebrates in France. This collection is evenlarger than the collection of Paris (MNHN)and one of the top-20 fossil collections inthe world.

• The Géosystèmes research unit of the Uni-versity of Lille1 and the UniversitéCatholique de Lille is a research unitfocused on sedimentary environments witha large paleontological team specializedon Paleozoic rocks (historically based onthe paleontology of Carboniferous coalbeds), but covering also the Precambrian,Mesozoic, Cenozoic and Quaternary, with

a special expertise in Paleozoic paleobio-geography and paleoclimate evolution.

The two last larger (> 10 permanent scien-tists) paleontology research units are affiliated tothe INEE, working more (but not entirely) on biolog-ical questions:

• the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution deMontpellier (ISE-M) is a large CNRSresearch unit working on biodiversity andevolution from various perspectives. Ithosts a large group of vertebrate andinvertebrate paleontologists, but alsopaleobotanists and palynologists. Theexpertise concentrates on upper Meso-zoic/Cenozoic vertebrates and Quaternarypaleontology, but also the Paleozoic, in alesser extent. A small but internationallyhighly visible group of paleobotanists isactive at the CIRAD at Montpellier.

• The Institut de Paléoprimatologie, Paléon-tologie Humaine: Evolution et Paléoenvi-ronnements (IPHEP) at the University ofPoitiers is focused on human evolution andvertebrate paleontology of the Cenozoic,with a special emphasis on Africa andSouth Asia. This research unit is interna-tionally recognized due to the discovery ofearly humans, such as Abel or Toumaï.

A high number of more or less isolated pale-ontologists work in numerous other departmentsthat are affiliated either to the INEE, the INSU orthe INSHS. Among the larger groups (with morethan three paleontologists), the paleontology teamsof Bordeaux, Toulouse, Rennes and Brest shouldbe mentioned.

The University of Bordeaux integrates a mixedUniversity-CNRS research team focused onmarine sciences and marine geology with a signifi-cant group of micropaleontologists and palynolo-gists focusing on Quaternary climate evolution butalso other aspects of Mesozoic and Cenozoic pale-ontology.

The small and relatively young research teamat the University Paul Sabatier at Toulouse focuseson invertebrate paleontology and its impact on cli-mate evolution and climate modeling. A stronglyvisible group of microbiologists and micropaleontol-ogists, in particular foraminifers, is very active atthe University of Angers.

An important paleontology research team for-merly existed in Normandy and Brittany. This team,

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which traditionally worked on Paleozoic paleontol-ogy, existed until the mid-1990s. It was based inthe cities of Rennes and Brest (Brittany) and Caen(Normandy). Whereas the retired paleontologists atCaen have not been replaced, the paleontologistsof Brest are now integrated in the marine geosci-ence department of the University, while the pale-ontologists of Rennes are affiliated to the large“Géosciences Rennes” department of the Univer-sity of Rennes1, where they built a strongly visibleresearch group on Mesozoic (Cretaceous) paleon-tology, with a leading role in the investigation ofamber.

Several geology or biology departments alsoinclude specialists who teach paleontology classesat other universities, such as Marseille, Nancy,Nice, or Strasbourg, and other cities. A total ofabout 200 to 250 paleontologists are currentlyworking as university assistants, university engi-neers and professors or CNRS research associ-ates, research engineers and research directors inthe different departments that are linked to Frenchuniversities or the MNHN.

Among other institutions including profes-sional paleontologists, one may mention the EcolePratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE) that hosts sci-entists in different research teams, notably at Paris,Dijon, Bordeaux, and Montpellier. The Collège deFrance also hosts several professionals, mostlyfocused on human paleontology. As indicatedabove several city museums (Toulouse, Marseille,Lyon, Lille, Orléans, and others) include trainedpaleontologists who occupy the roles of directors,curators and/or preparators.

National parks, private museums

Due to its outstanding historical-paleontologi-cal heritage, the French territory shelters manygeological reserves aiming to protect the strato-types and associated fossils. Protected areas andnational parks include national, regional or localnatural parks, among them are about ten geologi-cal parks (Réserves Naturelles Géologiques), themost important of which are those of Saucats-LaBrède, Île de Groix, de la Falaise du Cap-Romain,Thouars (Réserve Naturelle du Toarcien), Digne-les-Bains (Réserve Naturelle de Haute Provence),Apt (Réserve Naturelle du Lubéron), Vireux-Mol-hain, Hettange-Grande, Essonne, Pointe de Givet,etc.

A few private museums and non-profit organi-sations (with public fundings) exist in France, suchas the “Musée des dinosaures” (Espéraza), “Rhi-nopolis” (Gannat) or the “Plage aux Ptérosaures”

(Crayssac). They primarily focus on a given periodor taxonomic group, alongside a paleontologicallocality of outstanding interest.

Both of the above-mentioned national parksand private museums host trained paleontologists,usually with short-term contracts.

FUNDING AND RECRUITMENT

Public and private funding

There is a general impression among Frenchscientists that the budget dedicated to publicresearch has significantly decreased in recentyears, which is mainly due to the fact that the distri-bution of governmental support has drasticallychanged in the last decade.

A major change is the modification of the uni-versity law in 2007 (La loi relative aux libertés etresponsabilités des universités, LRU), each univer-sity being now responsable in terms of its budgetand all recruitments. The university council nowfreely decides if a position is to be (re)opened or ifa department or research unit is getting financed orclosed.

In addition, several drastic changes took placewith the creation of a national research agency(Agence Nationale de Recherche, ANR). Similarlyto the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) inGermany or the National Environment ResearchCouncil (NERC) in the United Kingdom, the ANR isa national agency that provides project-basedfunding to advance French research in selectedscientific fields. The ANR was established by theFrench government in 2005 to fund researchprojects, based on competitive schemes.

The national evaluation agency (Agenced’Evaluation de la Recherche et de l’EnseignementSupérieur, AERES) is an independent administra-tive authority set up in 2007. It evaluates researchand higher education institutions, research organi-sations, research units, but also higher educationprogrammes and training degrees.

With these changes during the last decade, itbecame evident that French public research wouldbe more and more project-oriented now, with amuch stronger evaluation than until the end of 20th

century. This has major impacts on the funding ofresearch projects and research departments, butalso on the recruitment of professors, scientists,and technical staff.

Today, at a national scale, funding supportmainly originates from the ANR (that includes sala-ries for PhD’s or post-doctoral students) and fromthe CNRS through INSU/INEE research pro-

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grammes. At a local scale, the French universitiesand the MNHN support research projects throughthe “Bonus Qualité Recherche” (Research QualityBonus; BQR) project funding scheme. The ForeignAffairs Ministry also provides funding for fieldexpenses, in particular for projects related to inter-national collaboration, through different researchprogrammes. This support is particularly importantfor projects related to human evolution. Also, at theinternational level, French paleontological projectsare more and more supported by the EuropeanResearch Council (ERC). In addition, severalFrench foundations (e.g., the Fondation Singer-Polignac, the Fondation des Treilles, the FondationMarcel-Bleustein-Blanchet pour la Vocation, or theFondation de France, etc.) provide also individualgrants to post-graduate, Ph.D. or post-doctoral stu-dents. As a result, the French paleontologists arenow becoming more and more active to searchsupport from the numerous and various budgetlines.

Recruitment and generation change

Many permanent positions opened in the‘golden years’ of the 1960s and 1970s, i.e. a periodwhen a high number of paleontologists gotrecruited. Most of these scientists were university-based, working in research units that were affiliatedto the CNRS. This generation of paleontologistsrecently retired and a very important generationchange is currently taking place.

The situation in France is probably less dra-matic than in Germany (Kiessling et al., 2010),where many paleontology departments closed andmany retiring paleontologists did not get replaced.In France, numerous young scientists got recruitedin paleontology departments, in particular in thelarge departments.

Néraudeau (2010) counted that about 260students followed the three major paleontologymaster courses “Pal & Sed” (Dijon, Lyon, Marseille,Reims, Toulouse), “Paléontologie” (Paris, Montpel-lier, Poitiers, Rennes) and “Océanographie etMicropaléontologie” (Bordeaux) between 1986 and2000. About 150 of these students subsequentlyachieved a PhD in French research units, andabout 110 of those got permanent positions inresearch departments, 70 of them within France(many other got positions abroad, partly in theirhome countries). About 50 young scientists arenow holding positions in universities, while about20 got recruited by the CNRS.

These numbers (that do not take into accountsome of the smaller master course programs)

clearly indicate that the success rate for the recruit-ment of paleontologists on permanent positionswas relatively high in the last decade. These num-bers will surely drop significantly in the next years,because only few positions will become availabledue to a limited number of retirements.

In addition to the permanent positions in aca-demia, numerous paleontologists found permanentor short-term jobs in national or regional parks (ascurators or guides) and in regional and local muse-ums (as curators, technicians and guides), fundedby city councils, or at the level of the French admin-istrative departments or regions. Quite a few pale-ontologists also got positions in industry orconsulting agencies (especially micropaleontolo-gists). A great number of trained paleontologistsare currently school teachers or college professors,some left France (and got permanent positionsabroad), and others no longer work in the field ofpaleontology.

A significant generation change took place inFrance at the turn of the 21th century. While duringthe 1960s and 1970s most paleontologists whereworking on alpha taxonomy and biostratigraphy,and after a period of only very few recruitments inthe 1980s and 1990s, paleontologists are nowworking on scientific questions typical of the 21st

century: climate and global change, (paleo)biodi-versity, paleobiology, paleoenvironments, etc. Thenew generation publishes almost exclusively inEnglish, in contrast to the previous generation thatpublished mainly in French. Scientific articles aremore and more multi-authored, due to the chang-ing evaluation criteria that consider highly impacted(ISI) research being high quality research. After a“publish-or-perish” period (with a French evaluationsystem that mostly counted the number of publica-tions of scientists), most paleontologists now takecare about the impact factor of the journals and thenumber of citations of their articles.

Another important change is the integration ofmost scientists in interdisciplinary teams working inlarger departments, in comparison with isolatedscientists working in many different universitiesduring the 1960s to 1990s.

ASSOCIATIONS, JOURNALS, DATABASES

Associations

With the increasing number of paleontologistsrecruited in academic positions, the number ofactive specialists became significant in the secondhalf of the 20th century, which in turn allowed thecreation of an independent paleontological associ-

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ation. One of the objectives was to be recognizedas a group of scientists distinguished from the verylarge geological society (Société Géologique deFrance, created in 1830, see above). Many paleon-tologists no longer wanted to be considered assimple data providers for geologists that used thepaleontological results as (mostly stratigraphical,but also paleogeographical) proxies. In this con-text, and similarly to the Palaeontological Associa-tion that was created in the UK in 1954, theAssociation Paléontologique Française (APF) wascreated in 1979 (i.e., a quarter of a century laterthan the British association), just before the Inter-national Geological Congress of 1980 for which theAPF was one of the main organizing associations.The APF is a corporate member of the Interna-tional Paleontological Association (IPA) and for theInternational Zoological Congress which was heldin 2008 in Paris, APF participated actively by orga-nizing 2 paleontological sessions.

The association has currently about 250members. It holds a symposium every two years.The most recent meetings took place in 2007 in thenatural reservation at Digne-les-Bains (Haute-Provence), in 2009 at the Catholic University ofLille (North), and in 2011 in the local museum ofElbeuf near Rouen (Normandy). The APF tries tobring together all professional paleontologists fromFrance, not only those from academia. The bi-annual symposium is rather a national meeting, incontrast with the international annual meetings ofthe Palaeontological Association and the Paläon-tologische Gesellschaft. The French associationdistinguishes the best Ph.D. students with a prize.It edits a regular newsletter, distributes news to allmembers by electronic mail, and sponsors the jour-nal Annales de Paléontologie (see below).

A great number of smaller paleontology-related associations have been founded, some ofwhich are no longer active. With the high numberof French paleontologists during the 1970s and1980s, specialist groups have been created foreither fossil groups (such as the group of Frenchostracod workers) or stratigraphical intervals (suchas the Cretaceous interval, Groupe Français duCrétacé, for example). Among the active groupsare the French stratigraphers, mostly but notentirely composed of paleontologists (Comité Fran-çais de Stratigraphie), that edit the Carnets deGéologie (see below), or the Groupe Français duPaléozoïque, that organizes excursions to Paleo-zoic rocks in France and elsewhere in Europe.

The association of paleobotanists (Organisa-tion Française de Paléobotanique) is still active but

currently includes a strongly reduced number ofspecialists that meet at regular intervals.

A sister association of the APF is the APLF(Association des Palynologues de Langue Fran-çaise), that groups together all French speakingpalynologists. This association has over 100 mem-bers. However, only few paleontologists are cur-rently included in the APLF, as the number ofpaleopalynologists and stratigraphers has beenreduced dramatically in the last 20 years. MostFrench palynologists currently work on modernpalynology, including pollen biology or even foren-sic palynology or melissopalynology. They are par-ticularly active and visible for their investigations onQuaternary climate reconstructions.

French paleontology journals

A number of scientific journals related to pale-ontology have been created in France, but only fewof them are currently ISI-referenced. Among the 48journals listed under the subject category “paleon-tology” in the ISI Web of Science, the ComptesRendus Palevol have a 2010 impact factor (IF) of1.000, making this journal rank at the 27th positionout of 48.

This publication series was originally relatedto the Académie des Sciences at Paris. The journalis followed by Geodiversitas (open access; Publi-cations du Muséum, considered as a publication ofthe MNHN) with an IF of 0.986, ranking 30/48, andGeobios (the journal from the paleontology depart-ment of Lyon1) with an IF of 0.868, ranking 35/48.The Annales de Paléontologie (official journal ofthe APF) has an IF of 0.778 and is ranked 39/48 ofall paleontology journals.

Two other French journals of the subject cate-gory “geosciences” are also listed in the ISI Web ofScience, the Comptes Rendus Geosciences havea 2010 impact factor (IF) of 1.708, with a ranking ofthis journal at the 62th position out of 167 journalsin this category. The journal of the French geologi-cal society, the Bulletin de la Société Géologiquede France is ranked at the 86th position, with an IFof 1.250. Both journals regularly publish paleontol-ogy articles too.

Similar to the German journals (see alsoKiessling et al. 2010), there is an ISI discriminationof non-Anglophone journals also for the Frenchpublication series. French paleontologists areencouraged by their evaluation committees to tar-get American and British journals to increase theirindices, and the French journals, including the ISI-referenced publications, are regrettably neglected.

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Among the non-ISI-referenced journals thatregularly publish paleontological articles, Revue deMicropaléontologie, a well-established and interna-tional journal dedicated to microfossils. In fact, in2010, the IF of the journal was 0.8, but for 2011, itis almost 1.0. Palaeovertebrata (Montpellier 2 Uni-versity), Oryctos (Musée des dinosaures, Espéra-za), Annales de la Société géologique du Nord(Lille1 University) and Carnets de Géologie (BrestUniversity) should also be mentioned.

Databases: Trans’Tyfipal®

Trans’Tyfipal® is the national inventory of allpaleontological type and illustrated specimenshoused in French universities and museums. Thisnational programme, developed by the paleontol-ogy team at the University of Burgundy at Dijon,attempts to provide a complete inventory of paleon-tological types and illustrated specimens housed inFrance, that is accessible freely from internet. Theinstitutions with the largest number of type speci-mens constitute the national steering committeewho coordinates the regional network with localdata providers (small museums).

TRAINING OF PALEONTOLOGISTS

Paleontology is taught in most French univer-sities, for undergraduate students and future lifeand earth sciences high school teachers. However,several universities do not host any permanentprofessorship (for example, Nantes, Clermont-Fer-rand, Saint-Etienne, Nice, Besançon) but hire shortterm assistant professors instead (Attaché Tempo-raire d’Enseignement et de Recherche, ATER),through 6 to 24 month-long contracts.

Master courses are now presented at severaluniversities (and at the MNHN). The traditionalmaster courses (see Recruitment and generationchange) exist in modified versions and are com-pleted by more general master programs at otheruniversities. Currently, the master programs basedon research attract fewer students than thosebased on applied research, mostly because stu-dents (are being told they) have much betterchances to get positions outside of fundamentalresearch.

The Ph.D. degrees are financed by differentmeans. The “allocations” are the classical Ph.D.grants from the Ministry of Higher Education. Manyother grants and Ph.D. salaries now come from theANR projects, but also from many other sources,including industrial co-financing. Post-doctoral pro-grammes and other short-term contracts wereabsent for a very long time and have only been

introduced recently, in particular with the creationof the ANR.

The curriculum of French paleontologists ismore and more related to life sciences, which con-trasts to what occurred until the 1980s (mainlyearth scientists, working in alpha-taxonomy in abiostratigraphical perspective). The shift from taxo-nomic and systematic skills toward more analyticaldisciplines (e.g., biogeochemistry or molecularphylogeny) in the last decades is clearly a threatfor teaching paleontology basics and comparativeanatomy for the forthcoming decades.

Today, an average Doctor in Paleontology inFrance has passed a “Baccalauréat” (highschooldegree; age 18), a “Licence” (B.Sc., 3 years; age21), a “Master” (M. Sc., 2 years; age 23) and a“Thèse de troisième cycle” or “Thèse de Doctorat”(Ph.D., 3 years; age 26).

PERSPECTIVES AND THE FUTURE OF FRENCH PALEONTOLOGY

In terms of publications, scientific impact andcitations in the geosciences, France currentlyoccupies the fourth rank in the world after the USA,the UK and Germany. Based on the analyses ofgeo-science articles in international journals (datafrom the ISI Web of Science by Thomson Reuters)it is evident that France occupies one of the higherranks in scientific productivity and citation impact,with similar values to other countries in WesternEurope and North America (Isozaki et al., 2010).

Estimates indicate that about 7000 geoscien-tists are currently active in France (Blieck et al.2007), among them up to 150 paleontologists.French paleontologists are also represented inother scientific disciplines, such as biology and lifesciences as well as human and social sciences. Asin other countries, paleontology is highly interdisci-plinary in France, and a rapid summary of the sci-entific activities of French paleontologists can onlybe approximate and not comprehensive.

Together with astronomy and volcanology,paleontology is a scientific discipline that fasci-nates all generations. As in many countries all overthe world, paleontology is a common component inFrench society from mass media to children’s toyshops (partly thanks to dinosaurs!). However, aliketo the situation of paleontology in Germany (seeKiessling et al. 2010), the discipline lacks a strongacademic visibility in France, as paleontology isclassically located between geology and biologybut also neighbours archeology and other fields.This situation leads to a very weak voice inresearch councils and academia compared to

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physicists, chemists, or biologists. But evenamongst geoscientists, paleontologists are in a dif-ficult position when they compete against geophys-icists or geochemists (for example in terms ofimpact and citations). Similarly, in life sciences,paleontologists often have to negotiate researchgrants and positions together with colleaguesworking in ecology and biodiversity, but also genet-ics and other disciplines.

France displays a very active and highly multi-disciplinary paleontological community that isstrongly implicated in the fields of geological andbiological sciences. The French paleontologistswith permanent academic positions are muchyounger than a decade ago, due to the currentreplacement of recently retired colleagues. A rela-tively young generation is thus now in place, andthe presence of several larger centers should allowFrench paleontology to remain highly active andvisible in the next years. This new generation ofscientists must find a unity and create lobbyingorganisms to ensure financial support for paleonto-logical studies in the new very competitive fundingenvironment.

Different research teams and many individu-als are highly visible on the national and interna-tional level. All paleontological disciplines aredeveloped, including vertebrate and invertebratepaleontology, micropaleontology and paleobotany.French paleontologists are at the forefront on bio-metrical studies, but also on paleoclimate model-ing, and a strong interface between classicalpaleontology and geobiology is currently beingbuilt. Biogeochemical applications are used for thereconstruction of paleoclimates and paleoenviron-ments, with French scientists being leaders inthese fields. There is also a strong communityworking on macroevolution and on questions ofevolution and development (‘EVO-DEVO’), amongothers. French paleontologists now use modernanalytical techniques based on high-resolutionequipments (e.g., CT-Scan, Synchrotron, etc.).

However, the expertise in systematical pale-ontology does no longer cover all fossil groups orall stratigraphic intervals. Classical paleontology,based on taxonomy and biostratigraphy, is moreand more abandoned, and there is a clear dangerthat in a few years the biostratigraphical expertisewill no longer be available. There is also a clear

delay in analytical paleobiology in France, andmolecular paleontology is not yet very much devel-oped.

A major problem for the next years will be thelack of possibilities to recruit young scientists, asnew positions will most probably not become avail-able in larger numbers. Although many children willremain fascinated by the discipline, there is a greatdanger that it will become more and more difficultto motivate young students to study paleontology.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Roy Plotnick for the invitation to pro-duce this paper. Many of our colleagues provideduseful data and helpful discussion, among themRodolphe Tabuce and Laurent Marivaux (ISE-M,Montpellier), Alain Blieck and Patrick Auguste(Géosystèmes, Lille), and Yukio Isozaki (Tokyo,Japan). The opinions in this paper are ours and donot entirely reflect the opinions of our colleagues.

REFERENCES

Alpern, B., Combaz, A., Corsin, P., Jardiné, S., Taugour-deau, J., Vernier, J.P., 1968. Paléobotanique et paly-nologie en France: aperçu historique. Review ofPalaeobotany and Palynology, 7, 149-199.

Blieck, A., Reynaud, J.-Y., Barbey, P., Sustrac, G., 2007.Second Forum « Quels géologues pour demain ? »organisé par le CNFG, la SGF et l’UFG pendant la21e Réunion des Sciences de la Terre (RST 2006) àDijon (Palais des Congrès, 8 décembre 2006).- Géo-chronique, 103, 12-13.

Gayet, M., Babin, C., 2007. Des paléontologues de A àZ. Ellipses, Paris. 456 pp.

Kiessling, W., Nützel, A., Korn, D., Kröger, B., Müller, J.,2010. German Paleontology in the early 21st century.Palaeontologica Electronica, volume 13, issue 1 –2010.

Isozaki, Y., Maruyama, S., Yanai, S., 2010. At the Stageof “exporting science”: a historical review of studieson the geotectonic subdivision and orogeny of theJapanese Islands. Journal of Geography, 119, 378-391.

Néraudeau, D., 2010. 25 ans de DEA de paléontologie:de l'apprenti chercheur au chercheur d'emploi. In:Dossier "Evolution des métiers et des pratiques engéosciences". Géologues, 164, 91-92.

Shuhai Xiao, Qun Yang, Zhe-Xi Luo, 2010. A golden ageof paleontology in China? A SWOT Analysis. Palae-ontologica Electronica, volume 13, issue 1 – 2010.

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