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:
- Do all clades show the same growth patterns?
- Are any clades 'stable'?
- What implications does this have on their diversity/extinction patterns?
- 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