Pierre Quézel (1926-2015), une vie et une oeuvre scientifique entre Méditerranée et Sahara / Pierre Quézel (1926-2015), his life and scientific work between the Mediterranean Basin and the Sahara

Abstract

This study provides an overview of the scientific work of Pierre Quézel (1926-2015). Ecologist and biogeographer, twice Doctor of the University of Montpellier, in science and in medicine, he was professor at the University of Algiers until 1962 and thereafter at the University of Aix-Marseille where, in 1964, he set up the Laboratory for Mediterranean Botany and Ecology which he continued to head until 1990. He was also one of the co-founders in 1985 of the Mediterranean Institute for Ecology and Paleoecology (IMEP). Author of 406 scientific publications which include several books, he devoted more than fifty years to the study of the flora and vegetation of the Mediterranean region and the Sahara, working on a wide range of topics : biogeography, palaeoecology, phytosociology, ecological dynamics, human impacts and biodiversity conservation. An internationally-recognised expert, he played a major role in the understanding of Mediterranean forests and woodlands and in obtaining recognition of their specific features, as much for their structure as for the dynamics of their succession over generations. Through the orientation of his research, which also encompassed aspects of paleoecology and cytotaxonomy, and the training of innumerable research scientists from countries all around the Mediterranean Rim, Pierre Quézel succeeded in creating a very fertile dynamic for research in ecology and plant geography, thus enhancing the understanding and preservation of what has become a hotspot of biodiversity, part of the planet’s evolving biogeographic capital.