Dr. Hugues-Alexandre Blain
Dr. Hugues-Alexandre Blain has earned his PhD (2005) at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle de Paris from a background in Geology and Biology at the University of Basse-Normandie (Caen, France). He is currently Leader Group of “Human Paleoecology of the Plio-Pleistocene” at the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (Center of Excellence Maria de Maeztu). As a specialist in fossil amphibians and reptiles, his research applies on a taxonomic approach as his main primary-data paleoecological proxy to reconstruct the climate and landscapes of the Early and Middle Pleistocene (2.6 to 0.12 Ma). For that, he has adapted and developed a strong methodology, combining other proxies, to infer quantitative paleoclimate parameters from numerous archaeo-paleontological localities, participating in several field seasons at Spain, France, Italy, Morocco, Serbia, Armenia, among others. With this track, Dr. Blain is currently testing and unifying the different methodologies based on small vertebrates, sharpening paleoclimate estimates based on continental records, in order to contrast climate changes on land, biodiversity loss and hominin dispersal models. As a collaborator of the TransCause project, he will co-supervise the PhD of Dominik Lukas Rogall, entitled: “Herpetofauna and microfauna analysis in Armenia as proxy for past human occupation”.
Research interests: Amphibians, Reptiles, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Holocene, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology, Ambiental Archeology, Modern Osteology, Biotic Responses to Past Climate change, Extinction.
