TetraTime.Rmd

---
title: "TetraTime"
output: html_document
---

**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](https://peerj.com/articles/4417/) - 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](http://fossilworks.org/bridge.pl?user=Guest&action=displayDownloadForm)

Notes on data selection:
1. Restricted to Mesozoic groups as the data are most complete
2. Downloaded occurences from [here](http://fossilworks.org/bridge.pl?user=Guest&action=displayDownloadForm) 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:

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

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

## Contributing

TetraTime is an open project that anyone can contribute to on [GitHub](https://github.com/Meta-Paleo/TetraTime). 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.

### Contributors:
- Jon Tennant
- [Liubov Tiupikina](https://twitter.com/luyibov)
- [Marc Santolini](https://twitter.com/msantolini)