Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:29:42.490Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Global databases will yield reliable measures of global biodiversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

John Alroy
John Alroy*
Affiliation:
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, 735 State Street, Suite 300, Santa Barbara, California 93101. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For decades, paleobiologists have treated global diversity estimation as a straightforward problem (Miller 2000): count up the known higher taxa in each geological time interval, make a diversity curve, and go straight ahead to analyzing and interpreting the trends. However, global diversity curves recently have come under attack from all sides. Some researchers argue that although traditional curves are strongly affected by sampling biases (e.g., Smith 2001; Peters and Foote 2002), these biases can be corrected by assembling large, locality-level databases with detailed contextual information (Alroy et al. 2001). Others point to the large gap between true total global richness and the meager head counts the fossil record has to offer, and conclude that workers should focus exclusively on local and regional diversity (Jackson and Johnson 2001). Here I argue that although further fieldwork surely is needed, understanding global diversity in the short term remains a tractable goal—as long as we move quickly to build a discipline-wide, globally extensive paleontological database.

Type
Matters of the Records
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , Winter 2003 , pp. 26 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Allison, P. A., and Briggs, D. E. G. 1993. Paleolatitudinal sampling bias, Phanerozoic species diversity, and the end-Permian extinction. Geology 21:65–68.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alroy, J. 1996. Constant extinction, constrained diversification, and uncoordinated stasis in North American mammals. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 127:285–311.Google Scholar
Alroy, J. 2000. Successive approximations of diversity curves: ten more years in the library. Geology 28:1023–1026.Google Scholar
Alroy, J., et al. 2001. Effects of sampling standardization on estimates of Phanerozoic marine diversification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98:6261–6266.Google Scholar
Badgley, C., and Gingerich, P. D. 1988. Sampling and faunal turnover in early Eocene mammals. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 63:141–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benton, M. J., Wills, M. A., and Hitchin, R. 2000. Quality of the fossil record through time. Nature 403:534–537.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colwell, R. K., and Coddington, J. A. 1994. Estimating terrestrial biodiversity through extrapolation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 345:101–118.Google ScholarPubMed
Connolly, S. R., and Miller, A. I. 2002. Joint estimation of sampling and turnover rates from fossil databases: capture-mark-recapture methods revisited. Paleobiology 27:751–767.Google Scholar
Foote, M. 1991. Morphological patterns of diversification: examples from trilobites. Palaeontology 34:461–485.Google Scholar
Foote, M. 2002. Inferring temporal patterns of preservation, origination, and extinction from taxonomic survivorship analysis. Paleobiology 27:602–630.Google Scholar
Holland, S. M. 1995. The stratigraphic distribution of fossils. Paleobiology 21:92–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1998. Geographic variation in the molluscan recovery from the end-Cretaceous extinction. Science 279:1327–1330.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C., and Johnson, K. G. 2001. Paleoecology: measuring past biodiversity. Science 293:2401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kidwell, S. M., and Brenchley, P. J. 1994. Patterns in bioclastic accumulation through the Phanerozoic: changes in input or in destruction. Geology 22:1139–1143.Google Scholar
Koch, C. F. 1978. Bias in the published fossil record. Paleobiology 4:367–377.Google Scholar
Koch, C. F. 1987. Prediction of sample size effects on the measured temporal and geographic distribution patterns of species. Paleobiology 13:100–107.Google Scholar
Koch, C. F., and Sohl, N. F. 1983. Preservational effects in paleoecological studies: Cretaceous mollusc examples. Paleobiology 9:26–34.Google Scholar
May, R. M. 1975. Patterns of species abundance and diversity. Pp. 81–120in Cody, M. L. and Diamond, J. M., eds. Ecology and evolution of communities. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
McKinney, F. K., Lidgard, S., and Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1998. Decoupled temporal patterns of evolution and ecology in two post-Paleozoic clades. Science 281:807–809.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, A. I. 1997. Dissecting global diversity patterns: examples from the Ordovician Radiation. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 28:85–104.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I. 2000. Conversations about Phanerozoic global diversity. In Erwin, D. H. and Wing, S. L., eds. Deep time: Paleobiology's perspective. Paleobiology 26(Suppl. to No. 4):53–73.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I., and Foote, M. 1996. Calibrating the Ordovician Radiation of marine life: implications for Phanerozoic diversity trends. Paleobiology 22:304–309.Google Scholar
Nichols, J. D., and Pollock, K. H. 1983. Estimating diversity, extinction rates, and speciation rates from fossil data using capture-recapture models. Paleobiology 9:150–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niklas, K. J., and Tiffney, B. H. 1994. The quantification of plant biodiversity through time. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 345:35–44.Google Scholar
Patterson, C., and Smith, A. B. 1987. Is the periodicity of extinctions a taxonomic artifact? Nature 330:248–251.Google Scholar
Peters, S. E., and Foote, M. 2002 (for 2001). Biodiversity in the Phanerozoic: a reinterpretation. Paleobiology 27:584–601.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1972. Taxonomic diversity during the Phanerozoic. Science 177:1065–1071.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1976. Species diversity in the Phanerozoic: an interpretation. Paleobiology 2:289–297.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M., and Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1982. Mass extinctions in the marine fossil record. Science 215:1501–1503.Google Scholar
Schubert, J. K., Kidder, D. L., and Erwin, D. H. 1997. Silica-replaced fossils through the Phanerozoic. Geology 25:1031–1034.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1978. A kinetic model of Phanerozoic taxonomic diversity. I. Analysis of marine orders. Paleobiology 4:223–251.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1988. Alpha, beta, or gamma: where does all the diversity go? Paleobiology 14:221–234.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1993. Ten years in the library: new data confirm paleontological patterns. Paleobiology 19:43–51.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1997. Biodiversity: past, present, future. Journal of Paleontology 71:533–539.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., and Kendrick, D. C. 1993. Numerical experiments with model monophyletic and paraphyletic taxa. Paleobiology 19:168–184.Google Scholar
Smith, A. B. 2001. Large-scale heterogeneity of the fossil record: implications for Phanerozoic biodiversity studies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 356:351–367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, A. B., Gale, A. S., and Monks, N. E. A. 2001. Sea-level change and rock record bias in the Cretaceous: a problem for extinction and diversification studies. Paleobiology 27:241–253.Google Scholar
Sugihara, G. 1980. Minimal community structure: an explanation of species abundance patterns. American Naturalist 116:770–787.Google Scholar
Wagner, P. J. 1995. Diversity patterns among early gastropods: contrasting taxonomic and phylogenetic descriptions. Paleobiology 21:410–439.Google Scholar