Round up the usual suspects: common genera in the fossil record and the nature of wastebasket taxa

From: Paleobiology | Date: January 1, 2006| Author: Plotnick, Roy E; Wagner, Peter J | Copyright information

Abstract.-Understanding the extent to which the reported fossil record reflects biological history, rather than preservational artifacts or other biasing factors, remains one of the central issues in the interpretation of the history of life on Earth. The development of large interactive paleontological databases, such as the Paleobiology Database (PBDB), allows detailed analyses of the patterns of occurrence, both regionally and globally, of taxa in the fossil record and makes possible testi...

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