Philippe Cuénoud (born July 8, 1968) is an

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

and

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

of Swiss and Ukrainian descent, living in Onex (near

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

), who worked on the

Psocoptera Psocoptera () are a paraphyletic group of insects that are commonly known as booklice, barklice or barkflies. The name Psocoptera has been replaced with Psocodea in recent literature, with the inclusion of the former order Phthiraptera into Psoc ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

and

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, as well as on plant

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 ...

. He found in 1991 the only then known population of '' Lachesilla rossica'' near Geneva (the species has been described from southern Russia and may still exist there - it was found in Albania in 2015 ) and contributed further to the knowledge of the flora and fauna of the

canton of Geneva The Canton of Geneva, officially the Republic and Canton of Geneva, is one of the Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons of the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of forty-five Municipality, municipalities, and the seat of the governme ...

with the first mention of a

slender-billed gull The slender-billed gull (''Chroicocephalus genei'') is a mid-sized gull which breeds very locally around the Mediterranean and the north of the western Indian Ocean (e.g. Pakistan) on islands and coastal lagoons. Most of the population is somewh ...

Lionel Maumary, Laurent Vallotton, Peter Knaus, Simon Birrer (2007). Les oiseaux de Suisse, Station ornithologique suisse. (a Mediterranean bird species usually absent form Switzerland) and with the discovery of the first reported population of small-leaved helleborines.Arx B. von & Cuénoud, P. (1992). Epipactis microphylla (Ehrh.) Sw.: une nouvelle espèce d'orchidée pour le Canton de Genève. ''Saussurea'' 23: 15-21. He also participated in a multidisciplinary study of the free-living fauna and flora of Basel's Zoo. In a 1999 trip to Brasil with Alain Chautems, he was among the first few people to see the newly rediscovered flower '' Sinningia araneosa'', that had gone missing for more than a century. Epipactis microphylla 2

In 2022, he joined Onex's City Council to help better protect a population of autumn lady's-tresses.

Entomology

Cuénoud collected

(an

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

order related to

lice Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...

) for the best part of the year 1993 in

, on the traditional grounds of the

Biangai The Biangai people are an ethnic group living on the slopes of the upper Bulolo valley, in Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern h ...

and Biaru people, in the Morobe province, as well as in the Baitabag forest, in the

Madang Madang (old German name: ''Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen'') is the capital of Madang Province and is a town with a population of 27,420 (in 2005) on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. History Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai was probably the first Eur ...

province, and took part in a survey of the bird species of the Kuper mountain range.Cuénoud, P., Hutten, M., & Hoeft, R. (1993). Survey of the Avifauna of Kuper Range, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Proceedings of the Biological Society of New Guinea 1: 143-147. The rich material obtained allowed him to revise the New Guinean endemic genus

Novopsocus ''Novopsocus'' is a genus in the Pseudocaeciliidae family, with, until 2008, one described species endemic to New Guinea (described by Thornton.Thornton, I. W. B. 1984. An unusual psocopteran from new Guinea and its relationships within the Philo ...

(

Pseudocaeciliidae Pseudocaeciliidae is a family (biology), family of Psocodea (formerly Psocoptera) belonging to the suborder Psocomorpha. The name stems from a superficial resemblance to the distantly related family Caeciliusidae (formerly Caeciliidae). The fami ...

) and to describe the two new species ''

Novopsocus magnus ''Novopsocus magnus'' is a species of Pseudocaeciliidae that lives on the island of New Guinea. Males of this species were first thought by Thornton (1984) to be males of ''N. stenopterus'', but Cuénoud (2008) showed that it is indeed a separate ...

'' and ''

Novopsocus caeciliae ''Novopsocus caeciliae'' is a species of ''Novopsocus'' from New Guinea known from a single male thus far, found in the lowlands near Baitabag, Madang Province. Its hypandrium is similar to that of Novopsocus magnus, and thus differs from the hy ...

'', by comparison with specimens of the

Australian Museum The Australian Museum, originally known as the Colonial Museum or Sydney Museum. is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney, William Street, Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, New South Wales. It is the oldest natural ...

lent by Courtenay Smithers (previous authors had mistaken males of ''N. magnus'' for males of the type species ''

Novopsocus stenopterus ''Novopsocus stenopterus'' is a Psocoptera species found in New Guinea. It is the type species of its genus, characterised by similar sexes, the males having antennae similar to those of females. There are two other species of ''Novopsocus ''N ...

'', whilst ''N. caeciliae'' had never been found before). Polypsocus sp

Cuénoud also had a small part in the ''Ibisca'' project ("Investigating the Biodiversity of Soil and Canopy Arthropods"), an ambitious scientific programme led by Bruno Corbara, Maurice Leponce, Hector Barrios and Yves Basset (with the initial support of Edward O. Wilson), that produced new data on the biodiversity of the

San Lorenzo San Lorenzo is the Italian and Spanish name for Saint Lawrence, the 3rd-century Christian martyr, and may refer to: Places Argentina * San Lorenzo, Santa Fe * San Lorenzo Department, Chaco * Villa San Lorenzo, town and municipality in Salta P ...

rainforest, on the Caribbean coast of the

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

isthmus (in a paper written by the ''Ibisca'' team and featured on the cover of the prestigious scientific journal

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

,Basset, Y., Cizek, L., Cuénoud, P., Didham, R.K., Guilhaumon, F., Missa, O., Novotny, V., Ødegaard, F., Roslin, T., Schmidl, J., Tishechkin, A.K., Winchester, N.N., Roubik,D.W., Aberlenc, H.-P., Bail, J., Barrios, H., Bridle, J.R., Castaño-Meneses, G., Corbara, B., Curletti, G., Duarte da Rocha, W., De Bakker,D., Delabie, J.H.C., Dejean, A., Fagan, L.L., Floren, A., Kitching, R.L., Medianero, E., Miller, S.E., de Oliveira, E.G., Orivel, J., Pollet, M., Rapp, M., Ribeiro, S.P., Roisin, Y., Schmidt, J.B., Sørensen, L., & Leponce, M. (2012). Arthropod diversity in a tropical forest. ''Science'', 338: 1481-1484. the total count of arthropod species of the forest was extrapolated to be about 25'000). Cuénoud is possibly the only person this far (as of 2019) to have seen (and photographed) a live specimen of the rare insect species ''Oronoqua ibisca'' ( Issidae), discovered during the field-sampling phase of the project and known otherwise from mounted specimens.Vladimir M. Gnezdilov, Jacques Bonfils, Henri-Pierre Aberlenc et Yves Basset (2010). Review of the Neotropical genus Oronoqua Fennah, 1947 (Insecta, Hemiptera, Issidae). ''Zoosystema'', 32: 247-257.

Botany

Cuénoud studied the phylogeny of the genus ''

Ilex ''Ilex'' () or holly is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen or ...

'' (hollies and related species,

Aquifoliaceae ''Ilex'' () or holly is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen or ...

) with Jean-François Manen, Pierre-André Loizeau and Rodolphe Spichiger (in the same laboratory as Philippe Clerc and

Vincent Savolainen Vincent Savolainen is a biologist. Savolainen was born on 27 September 1966. He is of Finnish origin and holds Swiss, British, and French citizenship. Savolainen earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Geneva and obtained his doctor ...

),Cuénoud, P., Del Pero Martinez M.A., Loizeau P.-A., Spichiger, R., Andrews S., Manen J.-F. (2000). Molecular phylogeny and biogeography of the genus Ilex L. (Aquifoliaceae). ''Annals of Botany'', 85: 111-122. a study that led to the synonymy of the North American genus '' Nemopanthus'' with ''Ilex''.Powell, M., Savolainen, V., Cuénoud, P., Manen, J. F., & Andrews, S. (2000). The mountain holly (''Nemopanthus mucronatus'': Aquifoliaceae) revisited with molecular data. ''Kew Bulletin'', 55: 341–347. He also studied the plant order

Caryophyllales Caryophyllales ( ) is a diverse and heterogeneous order of flowering plants with well-known members including cacti, carnations, beets, quinoa, spinach, amaranths, pigfaces and ice plants, oraches and saltbushes, goosefoots, sundews, Venu ...

(made up of about 30 plant families, many of which are adapted to dry habitats - e.g.

cacti A cactus (: cacti, cactuses, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae (), a family of the order Caryophyllales comprising about 127 genera with some 1,750 known species. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, ...

- or carnivory: sundews and

nepenthes ''Nepenthes'' ( ) is a genus of carnivorous plants, also known as tropical pitcher plants, or monkey cups, in the monotypic family Nepenthaceae. The genus includes about 170 species, and numerous natural and many cultivated hybrids. They are m ...

, among others) with Vincent Savolainen and Mark Chase in

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1759, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

, sequencing the '' matK'' gene for many of its genera, and analysing the pigments of some of them (some Caryophyllales are known to produce

betalains Betalains are a class of red and yellow tyrosine-derived pigments found in plants of the order Caryophyllales, where they replace anthocyanin pigments. Betalains also occur in some higher order fungi. They are most often noticeable in the petals o ...

, an almost unique occurrence among

Angiosperms Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit. T ...

).Cuénoud P., Savolainen V., Chatrou L.W., Powell M., Grayer R.J., Chase M.W. (2002). Molecular phylogenetics of Caryophyllales based on nuclear 18S rDNA and plastid ''rbcL'', ''atpB'', and ''matK'' DNA sequences. ''American Journal of Botany'', 89: 132-144.Cuénoud, P. (2006). Phylogeny, Evolution, and Diversification of Caryophyllales. In: Plant Genome: Biodiversity and Evolution. Science Publishers, Inc. (USA). 1C : 187-218. These results confirmed that

Molluginaceae The Molluginaceae are a family (biology), family of flowering plants recognized by several taxonomists. It was previously included in the larger family Aizoaceae. The APG III system of 2009 made no change in the status of the family as compared ...

and

Phytolaccaceae Phytolaccaceae is a family (biology), family of flowering plants. Though almost universally recognized by Taxonomy (biology), taxonomists, its circumscription has varied. It is also known as the Pokeweed family. The APG II system, of 2003 (unch ...

in their traditional sense are

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

, and contributed to the recognition of the families

Barbeuiaceae ''Barbeuia madagascariensis'' is a liana found only on the island of Madagascar. ''Barbeuia'' has occasionally been placed in its own family, Barbeuiaceae. The APG II system of 2003, for instance, recognizes such a family and assigns it to the ...

(containing a single liana species in its own genus, living on the island of

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

Gisekiaceae ''Gisekia'' is a genus of flowering plants. It is the only genus in the family Gisekiaceae. The family was recognized in the APG II system (2003) and assigned to the order Caryophyllales in the clade core eudicots. This represents a change from t ...

(made up of the monotypic, African genus ''Gisekia''),

Limeaceae ''Limeum'' is a genus of flowering plants. It includes 25 species. The genus ''Limeum'' was traditionally recognized as belonging to the family Molluginaceae, but is now treated as the sole genus in the monotypic family Limeaceae. The family is ...

(comprising two genera of herbaceous plants from Africa, India and Australia) and

Lophiocarpaceae The Lophiocarpaceae are a family of flowering plants comprising mostly succulent subshrubs and herbaceous species native to tropical to southern sub-Saharan Africa to western India. It includes the genera '' Corbichonia'' and '' Lophiocarpus''.An ...

(containing ''

Lophiocarpus ''Lophiocarpus'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Lophiocarpaceae The Lophiocarpaceae are a family of flowering plants comprising mostly succulent subshrubs and herbaceous species native to tropical to southern sub-Sahara ...

'' and ''

Corbichonia ''Corbichonia'' is a genus of flowering plant in the family Lophiocarpaceae. Since 2016 it is treated under monotypic family Corbichoniaceae. Species in the genus are seed-bearing, vascular, succulent In botany, succulent plants, also known ...

'', two genera of herbs from Africa and India).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuenoud, Philippe Swiss entomologists 21st-century Swiss botanists Botanists active in Kew Gardens Living people Botanists from Geneva 1968 births