Together with André Thouin, Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet, Aubin-Louis Millin de Grandmaison and Pierre Willemet, Bosc participated, in 1787, in the founding of the first Linnean society in the world, the Société linnéenne de Paris.

His friendship with Roland allowed Bosc to rise to a substantial position, but when that minister fell into disgrace he was dismissed on May 31, 1793.

La Réveliière-Lépeaux, having become a member of the Directoire, allowed Bosc to leave for the United States, first as vice-consul to Wilmington in 1797, then as consul to New York in 1798.

Upon his return to France, he published Memoire sur quelques especes des champignons des parties meridionales de l'Amerique septentrionale (1811).

Bosc was brought back to France, where he served for a time as administrator of hospitals and prisons and obtained, in 1803, after a sojourn in Switzerland and Italy courtesy of Georges Cuvier, a position in the gardens and nurseries of Versailles.

In 1806, he was elected to membership in the Académie des sciences in the rural husbandry section.

In 1825, he succeeded André Thouin to the chair of plant culture at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.

He died unexpectedly not many years later in Paris, in 1828.

He was the author of three volumes of Suites à Buffon, edited by René Richard Louis Castel: Histoire naturelle des Coquilles, contenant leur description, les mœurs des animaux qui les habitent et leurs usages (Paris, 5 volumes, 1801); Histoire naturelle des Vers (Paris, 3 volumes, 1802); and Histoire naturelle des Crustacés (Paris, 3 volumes, 1802).

Bosc participated in the editing of the Nouveau Dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle appliquée aux arts, principalement à l'agriculture, à l'économie rurale et domestique, under the direction of Jean-François-Pierre Deterville and Sonnini de Manoncourt (Paris, 24 volumes, 1803–1804, re-edited in 36 volumes, 1816–1819), and the Nouveau Cours complet d'agriculture théorique et pratique, also directed by Deterville (Paris, 13 volumes, 1809, re-edited in 16 volumes, 1821–1823).