TY - JOUR
T1 - A comprehensive database of quality-rated fossil ages for Sahul's Quaternary vertebrates
AU - Rodríguez-Rey, Marta
AU - Herrando-Pérez, Salvador
AU - Brook, Barry W.
AU - Saltré, Frédérik
AU - Alroy, John
AU - Beeton, Nicholas
AU - Bird, Michael I.
AU - Cooper, Alan
AU - Gillespie, Richard
AU - Jacobs, Zenobia
AU - Johnson, Christopher N.
AU - Miller, Gifford H.
AU - Prideaux, Gavin J.
AU - Roberts, Richard G.
AU - Turney, Chris S M
AU - Bradshaw, Corey J A
N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2016. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2016/7/19
Y1 - 2016/7/19
N2 - The study of palaeo-chronologies using fossil data provides evidence for past ecological and evolutionary processes, and is therefore useful for predicting patterns and impacts of future environmental change. However, the robustness of inferences made from fossil ages relies heavily on both the quantity and quality of available data. We compiled Quaternary non-human vertebrate fossil ages from Sahul published up to 2013. This, the FosSahul database, includes 9,302 fossil records from 363 deposits, for a total of 478 species within 215 genera, of which 27 are from extinct and extant megafaunal species (2,559 records). We also provide a rating of reliability of individual absolute age based on the dating protocols and association between the dated materials and the fossil remains. Our proposed rating system identified 2,422 records with high-quality ages (i.e., a reduction of 74%). There are many applications of the database, including disentangling the confounding influences of hypothetical extinction drivers, better spatial distribution estimates of species relative to palaeo-climates, and potentially identifying new areas for fossil discovery.
AB - The study of palaeo-chronologies using fossil data provides evidence for past ecological and evolutionary processes, and is therefore useful for predicting patterns and impacts of future environmental change. However, the robustness of inferences made from fossil ages relies heavily on both the quantity and quality of available data. We compiled Quaternary non-human vertebrate fossil ages from Sahul published up to 2013. This, the FosSahul database, includes 9,302 fossil records from 363 deposits, for a total of 478 species within 215 genera, of which 27 are from extinct and extant megafaunal species (2,559 records). We also provide a rating of reliability of individual absolute age based on the dating protocols and association between the dated materials and the fossil remains. Our proposed rating system identified 2,422 records with high-quality ages (i.e., a reduction of 74%). There are many applications of the database, including disentangling the confounding influences of hypothetical extinction drivers, better spatial distribution estimates of species relative to palaeo-climates, and potentially identifying new areas for fossil discovery.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84978902224&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP130103842
U2 - 10.1038/sdata.2016.53
DO - 10.1038/sdata.2016.53
M3 - Article
C2 - 27434208
AN - SCOPUS:84978902224
SN - 2052-4463
VL - 3
SP - 1
EP - 7
JO - Scientific Data
JF - Scientific Data
M1 - 160053
ER -