Long-Term Cycles in the History of Life: Periodic Biodiversity in the Paleobiology Database
dc.contributor.author | Melott, Adrian L. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2014-03-19T19:26:20Z | |
dc.date.available | 2014-03-19T19:26:20Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2008-12-24 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Melott, A. L. (2008). Long-Term Cycles in the History of Life: Periodic Biodiversity in the Paleobiology Database. PLoS ONE, 3(12). http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0004044 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1808/13269 | |
dc.description.abstract | Time series analysis of fossil biodiversity of marine invertebrates in the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) shows a significant periodicity at approximately 63 My, in agreement with previous analyses based on the Sepkoski database. I discuss how this result did not appear in a previous analysis of the PBDB. The existence of the 63 My periodicity, despite very different treatment of systematic error in both PBDB and Sepkoski databases strongly argues for consideration of its reality in the fossil record. Cross-spectral analysis of the two datasets finds that a 62 My periodicity coincides in phase by 1.6 My, equivalent to better than the errors in either measurement. Consequently, the two data sets not only contain the same strong periodicity, but its peaks and valleys closely correspond in time. Two other spectral peaks appear in the PBDB analysis, but appear to be artifacts associated with detrending and with the increased interval length. Sampling-standardization procedures implemented by the PBDB collaboration suggest that the signal is not an artifact of sampling bias. Further work should focus on finding the cause of the 62 My periodicity. | |
dc.description.sponsorship | The University of Kansas had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. | |
dc.publisher | Public Library of Science | |
dc.rights | ©2008 Melott. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
dc.subject | Autocorrelation | |
dc.subject | Biodiversity | |
dc.subject | Fossil record | |
dc.subject | Fossils | |
dc.subject | Fourier analysis | |
dc.subject | Interpolation | |
dc.subject | Marine fossils | |
dc.subject | Paleobiology | |
dc.title | Long-Term Cycles in the History of Life: Periodic Biodiversity in the Paleobiology Database | |
dc.type | Article | |
kusw.kuauthor | Melott, Adrian L. | |
kusw.kudepartment | Department of Physics and Astronomy | |
kusw.oastatus | na | |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1371/journal.pone.0004044 | |
kusw.oaversion | Scholarly/refereed, publisher version | |
kusw.oapolicy | This item does not meet KU Open Access policy criteria. | |
dc.rights.accessrights | openAccess |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as: ©2008 Melott. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.