The Quality of the Fossil Record: Implications for Evolutionary Analyses
- 1 November 2002
- journal article
- Published by Annual Reviews in Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics
- Vol. 33 (1), 561-588
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.33.030602.152151
Abstract
▪ Abstract Advances in taphonomy and stratigraphy over the past two decades have dramatically improved our understanding of the causes, effects, and remedies of incompleteness in the fossil record for the study of evolution. Taphonomic research has focused on quantifying probabilities of preservation across taxonomic groups, the temporal and spatial resolution of fossil deposits, and secular changes in preservation over the course of the Phanerozoic. Stratigraphic research has elucidated systematic trends in the formation of sedimentary gaps and permanent stratigraphic records, the quantitative consequences of environmental change and variable rock accumulation rates over short and long timescales, and has benefited from greatly improved methods of correlation and absolute age determination. We provide examples of how these advances are transforming paleontologic investigations of the tempo and mode of morphologic change, phylogenetic analysis, and the environmental and temporal analysis of macroevolutionary patterns.Keywords
This publication has 102 references indexed in Scilit:
- Large–scale heterogeneity of the fossil record: implications for Phanerozoic biodiversity studiesPhilosophical Transactions B, 2001
- Reefs during the multiple crises towards the Ordovician-Silurian boundary: Anticosti Island, eastern Canada, and worldwideCanadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2001
- New Perspectives on Orbitally Forced StratigraphyAnnual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2000
- Patterns in bioclastic accumulation through the Phanerozoic: Changes in input or in destruction?Geology, 1994
- Calibrating Rates of Early Cambrian EvolutionScience, 1993
- The tropics as a source of evolutionary novelty through geological timeNature, 1993
- Exceptional fossil record: Distribution of soft-tissue preservation through the PhanerozoicGeology, 1993
- Paleolatitudinal sampling bias, Phanerozoic species diversity, and the end-Permian extinctionGeology, 1993
- Environmental Patterns in the Origins of Higher Taxa: The Post-Paleozoic Fossil RecordScience, 1991
- Diachrony of Late Neogene microfossils in the southwest Pacific Ocean: Application of the graphic correlation methodPaleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, 1988