TetraTime

Project to map growth of tetrapod clades through time

Potential title: Tracking the growth of the fossil record

This has already been done for dinosaurs - now let's see what happens if we examine this for all tetrapod clades!

Key research questions:

1. Do all clades show the same growth patterns?
2. Are any clades 'stable'?
3. What implications does this have on their diversity/extinction patterns?
4. What is the structure of growth in terms of geography?

Data sources: Fossilworks

Notes on data selection:

• Restricted to Mesozoic groups as the data are most complete
• Downloaded occurences from here using the 'full form' option
• Basic options: Set taxonomic level to species; set time span as 'Mesozoic'
• Included collections: Keep all default options set
• Included occurrences: Remove ichnofossils and form taxa; keep all other default options set
• Colletion fields: basic fields, check all; geography fields, check all; time fields, check all; stratigraphy fields, check all; lithology fields, check all; no taphonomy or collection methods required
• Occurence fields: check ocurence no, reference no, year published, taxon no, type specimen, type locality
• Date downloaded: 02/08/2019

Groups:

• Dinosauria (minus Aves)
• Aves
• Testudinata
• Choristodera
• Crocodyliformes
• Ichythyopterygia
• Lepidosauromorpha
• Lissamphibia
• Mammaliaformes
• Pterosauria
• Sauropterygia

Major data contributors: Matthew Carrano John Alroy Philip Mannion Roger Benson

Visualisation ideas:

• Create a gif/video/dynamic figure showing how, for each clade, diversity patterns have changed through publication history.

• Create a gif/video/dynamic figure showing how, for each clade, the geographic distribution/discovery has changed through publication history