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An important part of my Ph.D. was the design and implementation of a customized relational database for storing all of the information used in my thesis. Dominantly fossil vertebrate information used either as climate proxies for reconstructing Cretaceous-Tertiary climate, or as taphonomic or environmental controls. The addition of modern climate and faunal/floral data has greatly expanded the value of this dataset (see Markwick, 2002 for a brief overview of this modern dataset). Expertise gained during the original compilation of this dataset has been used to help set up databases for other researchers, but has also provided a lesson in understanding data itself, the problems of scale and heterogeneity in large spatial datasets, that can be applied to many other non-biological databases (Markwick and Lupia, 2002). Additional information on database design will be added to the Database Resources section of this site.
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LEFT: Shows the taxonomic entry form and associated lists from the database. Detailed views are shown below.
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At present the Vertebrate Database used in my thesis contains detailed information on about 6000 globally distributed vertebrate localities for the last 100 million years, 25,000 extinct and living vertebrate and floral taxa (data includes ecological information--size, habitat, diet--for all living records), and climate information for 1060 climate stations. Fossil occurrences incude information on specimens represented, where this information is available. Faunal lists for each climate station have been compiled such that relationships between climate, environment, biogeography and biodiversity can be investigated.
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RIGHT: Closer view of the Taxonomy Entry Form. Note the inclusion of comprehensive systematic information, which facilitates analyses at levels of taxonomy (from sub-Species through Family and Order level). For living taxa I have also tried to record size, habit and habitat information for use in understanding the possibly links between species richness (biodiversity) and environmental conditions (especially climate) and (Markwick, 2002)
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LEFT: A typical listing of taxa (in this case the members of the genus Microtus)). The power of any databases is that information can be both queried in any way, but also that changes can be made easily in one place and then posted throughout the database.
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RIGHT: For fossil occurrences I have tried, where possible, to record the general speciments preserved. The main reason for this is to act as a check on taxonomic assignments that may be 'over zealous'. However, analysis of this information has also shown how systematic taphonomic differences between various vertbrate groups can greatly influence palaeoenvironmental and palaeobiodiversity interpretations (work in preparation).
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LEFT: The modern day dataset also includes a comprehensive dataset of climate observations from around the world, that has been used directly to understand the climate space of individual taxa and of assemblages.
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Much of the data included in this and other databases that I have compiled over the last 15 years has now been transferred to the GIS environment. Additional information on database design can be found in Markwick and Lupia (2002), as well as our respective PhD theses. I hope to also to gradually include further information in the Databases Resources Section of this site.
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