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Paleobiodiversity: we need new data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Jonathan M. Adrain  and
Stephen R. Westrop
Jonathan M. Adrain
Affiliation:
Department of Geoscience, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242. E-mail: jonathan-adrain@uiowa.edu
Stephen R. Westrop
Affiliation:
Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and School of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019. E-mail: swestrop@ou.edu
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Extract

Very different questions are involved when we attempt to assess modern versus ancient global biodiversity. Because of the megabiases of taphonomy, eustasy, and tectonics, our estimates of paleobiodiversity can never be absolute; whether or not we can accurately estimate total diversity in the modern world is an open question, but we certainly cannot in the fossil record. The issues are whether we have any way of studying relative change in biodiversity through time, and how best this might be accomplished. That is, can we meaningfully estimate the shape of a global temporal diversity curve?

Type
Matters of the Records
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , Winter 2003 , pp. 22 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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