Aim: To analyse the 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:
Data sources: Fossilworks
Notes on data selection: 1. Restricted to Mesozoic groups as the data are most complete 2. Downloaded occurences from here using the ‘full form’ option 3. Basic options: Set taxonomic level to species; set time span as ‘Mesozoic’ 4. Included collections: Keep all default options set 5. Included occurrences: Remove ichnofossils and form taxa; keep all other default options set 6. 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 7. Occurence fields: check ocurence no, reference no, year published, taxon no, type specimen, type locality 8. Date downloaded: 02/08/2019
Groups: - Dinosauria (minus Aves) - Aves - Testudinata - Choristodera - Crocodyliformes - Ichythyopterygia - Lepidosauromorpha - Lissamphibia - Mammaliaformes - Pterosauria - Sauropterygia
Major data contributors: 1. Matthew Carrano 2. John Alroy 3. Philip Mannion 4. 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
TetraTime is an open project that anyone can contribute to on GitHub. All data sources, methods, code, and results are openly shared for collaboration and inspection as the project evolves.
We strongly encourage others to participate in the project, propose their own ideas, and to contribute or re-use any of the data or other information available here.