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Re: GSA talks about dinosaur-related stuff
The point of the poster was to show how the database PteroTerra could be
utilized. Paleoenvironments, families, and species amounts were compared over
Geologic time to compare trends. The comparisons showed results similar to
Butler, et al. 2012. The main point, as stated above, was to show the
usefulness of PteroTerra, a pterosaur database that interfaces with Google
Earth. Once the specimen-based database is published, it will available for use
online so that anyone can very quickly compare characteristics of pterosaur
specimens without having to hunt down all of the primary literature themselves.
Matthew
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 8, 2012, at 11:39 AM, David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:
>> PTEROSAUR DIVERSITY PARALLELS CHANGES IN PALEOENVIRONMENT
>> MCLAIN, Matthew Aaron, 6 Perigo Pass, North Creek, NY 12853,
> > mmclain@cedarville.edu Pterosaurs were flying archosaurs whose
> > fossils have been found on every continent. These fossils first
> > appear in rocks of the Late Triassic, and they cease to appear at the
> > Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. The currently unpublished pterosaur
> > database PteroTerra records the paleoenvironments and families for
> > over 500 specimens. 463 specimens had listed paleoenvironments and
> > were utilized for this study. These paleoenvrionments were tallied
> > and compared for six portions of the Mesozoic: the Late Triassic,
> > Early Jurassic, Middle Jurassic, Late Jurassic, Early Cretaceous, and
> > Late Cretaceous. Then, pterosaur families were listed for each
> > geologic epoch. The results of these comparisons seem to show a
> > change from pterosaurs in marine paleoenvironments in the Early
> > Jurassic and Middle Jurassic, to a great diversity of
> > paleoenvironments in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous.
> > Simultaneously, the number of families present almost doubles from
> > the Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, and then continues to increase
> > into the Early Cretaceous. Thus, it appears that increasing
> > morphological diversity in pterosaurs parallels increasing habitat
> > diversity.
>
> Counting families as a measure of biodiversity? Seriously?
>
> Was there at least an attempt to count ghost lineages and account for the
> changing quality of the fossil record, itself dependent on the
> paleoenvironments?