Dunhill, AM, Hannisdal, B and Benton, MJ (2014) Disentangling rock record bias and common-cause from redundancy in the British fossil record. Nature Communications, 5. 4818.
Abstract
The fossil record documents the history of life, but the reliability of that record has often been questioned. Spatiotemporal variability in sedimentary rock volume, sampling and research effort especially frustrates global-scale diversity reconstructions. Various proposals have been made to rectify palaeodiversity estimates using proxy measures for the availability and sampling of the rock record, but the validity of these approaches remains controversial. Targeting the rich fossil record of Great Britain as a highly detailed regional exemplar, our statistical analysis shows that marine outcrop area contains a signal useful for predicting changes in diversity, collections and formations, whereas terrestrial outcrop area contains a signal useful for predicting formations. In contrast, collection and formation counts are information redundant with fossil richness, characterized by symmetric, bidirectional information flow. If this is true, the widespread use of collection and formation counts as sampling proxies to correct the raw palaeodiversity data may be unwarranted.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Earth Surface Science Institute (ESSI) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 31 Mar 2016 10:23 |
Last Modified: | 31 Mar 2016 10:31 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5818 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group: Nature Communications |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/ncomms5818 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:90720 |