Michel Laurin is a Canadian-born French vertebrate

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

whose specialities include the emergence of a land-based lifestyle among vertebrates, the evolution of body size and the origin and

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

lissamphibia The Lissamphibia (from Greek λισσός (lissós, "smooth") + ἀμφίβια (amphíbia), meaning "smooth amphibians") is a group of tetrapods that includes all modern amphibians. Lissamphibians consist of three living groups: the Salientia ( ...

ns. He has also made important contributions to the literature on

phylogenetic nomenclature Phylogenetic nomenclature is a method of nomenclature for taxa in biology that uses phylogenetic definitions for taxon names as explained below. This contrasts with the traditional method, by which taxon names are defined by a '' type'', which c ...

. As an undergraduate, he worked in the laboratory of

Robert L. Carroll Robert "Bob" Lynn Carroll (May 5, 1938 – April 7, 2020) was an American–Canadian vertebrate paleontologist who specialised in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles. Biography Carroll was an only child and grew up on a farm nea ...

and earned his Ph.D. at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

under the direction of Robert R. Reisz; his thesis concerned the

osteology Osteology () is the scientific study of bones, practiced by osteologists . A subdiscipline of anatomy, anthropology, archaeology and paleontology, osteology is the detailed study of the structure of bones, skeletal elements, teeth, microbone mo ...

of seymouriamorphs. His 1991 review of diapsid phylogeny provided the broadest review of the subject up to that date. In 1995, Laurin and Reisz coauthored a widely cited article providing evidence that the synapsids are the

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of all other

amniote Amniotes are tetrapod vertebrate animals belonging to the clade Amniota, a large group that comprises the vast majority of living terrestrial animal, terrestrial and semiaquatic vertebrates. Amniotes evolution, evolved from amphibious Stem tet ...

s. He later worked on untangling the phylogeny of the

Stegocephalia Stegocephali (often spelled Stegocephalia, from Greek , lit. "roofed head") is a clade of vertebrate animals containing all fully limbed tetrapodomorphs. It is equivalent to a broad definition of the superclass Tetrapoda: under this broad ...

, a group with a notoriously difficult phylogeny. He later moved to France; since 1998, he has been a

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

researcher at the

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

. He is an editor-in-chief of ''Comptes Rendus Palevol'', a journal in the ''

Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences (, ''Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences''), or simply ''Comptes rendus'', is a French scientific journal published since 1835. It is the proceedings of the French Academy of Sciences. It is currently split into seven sections, published o ...

'' family, as well as being a reviewing editor for the ''

Journal of Evolutionary Biology The ''Journal of Evolutionary Biology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published monthly covering the field of evolutionary biology. It is owned by the European Society for Evolutionary Biology. The founding editor-in-chief was Stephen C. ...

''. He has been a key contributor to the

International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature The International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature was established to encourage and facilitate the development and use of, and communication about, phylogenetic nomenclature. It organizes periodic scientific meetings and is overseeing the com ...

, where he served as president 2008–2009 and as secretary 2010–2011.ISPN council
official list from International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laurin, Michel Living people Canadian paleontologists Year of birth missing (living people) University of Toronto alumni