Geoinformatics: Leveraging the Paleobiology Database for Research, Education, Mentorship, and Interoperability

在过去十年中，古生物数据库一直是该领域宏观进化研究的主要推动力。它对生物多样性的局部到全球范围的变化、大规模灭绝的后果、环境变化的生态影响以及构成化石记录的地质过程产生了重要的见解。这种研究是预测当前全球变化对自然的长期影响的唯一具体依据。与此同时，PaleoDB已成为大学课程的重要教学工具和进入古生物学界文献的主要门户。在过去的十年中，它的222位贡献者收集了30,121篇出版物，808,807条分类发生记录，并对120,842个分类群的分类提出了262,909条意见。其网站提供一系列数据输入、查询、下载和分析工具。它与GBIF和CHRONOS集成，并提供多种web服务。它由一个由16名成员组成的咨询委员会管理，其中包括捐助者和盟国组织的代表。PaleoDB的活动已经产生了51位不同的资深作者撰写的101篇官方出版物，并且在3000多个维基百科页面上被引用作为参考。在2006年古生物学未来研究方向研讨会的报告中，它被挑选出来作为重要资源，并从三个主要古生物学会获得有限的资金用于其教育活动。在三个网站上进行镜像，并通过志愿者的努力继续提供基本的行政和技术支持，但需要实质性地发展新的基础设施。该项目的目标包括增强web服务，以便使用诸如生命百科全书之类的大型门户网站；与同源数据库（如Fossil Record File和TreeBASE）交换数据；与paleportal和个人博物馆收藏数据库的集成；创建新的工具和数据表，涉及系统发育学、地层学、地质年代学和地球化学。例如，这些改进将使地质学家能够访问有关地层剖面的动态集成信息，或者使生物学家能够快速可靠地校准分子锁。

The Paleobiology Database has been its field's main driver of macroevolutionaryresearch over the last decade. It has yielded major insights into local- to global-scale changes in biodiversity, the consequences of mass extinctions, the ecological impacts of environmental change, and the geological processes that structure the fossil record. This kind of research is the only concrete basis for predicting the long-term effects of current global change on nature. At the same time, the PaleoDB has served as an important teaching tool for university programs and a primary gateway into the literature for the paleobiological community. Over the past decade its 222 contributors have assembled 30,121references to publications, 808,807 taxonomic occurrence records, and 262,909 opinions on the classification of 120,842 taxa. Its website features an array of data entry, query,download, and analysis tools. It is integrated with GBIF and CHRONOS and offers several web services. It is governed by a 16-member Advisory Board that includes both contributors and representatives from allied organizations.The PaleoDB's activities have resulted in 101 official publications written by 51 different senior authors, and it is cited as a reference on more than 3000 Wikipedia pages. It was singled out as an essential resource in the report of the 2006 Future Research Directions in Paleontology workshop and has since received limited funding from three major paleontological societies for its educational activities. Mirroring on three websites and baseline administrative and technical support has continued through a volunteer effort, but substantive development of new infrastructure is needed. Goals of this project include enhancement of web services for use of large-scale portals such as the Encyclopedia of Life; exchange of data with cognate databases such as the Fossil Record File and TreeBASE; integration with PaleoPortal and individual museum collection databases; and creation of new tools and data tables involving phylogenetics, stratigraphy, geochronology, and geochemistry. These enhancements will, for example, make it possible for geologists to access dynamically integrated information on stratigraphic sections, or for biologists to quickly and reliably calibrate molecularclocks.