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

在过去的十年里，古生物学数据库一直是该领域宏观进化研究的主要驱动力。它对生物多样性从局部到全球范围内的变化、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大见解。这类研究是预测当前全球变化对自然的长期影响的唯一具体基础。与此同时，PaleoDB已经成为大学课程的重要教学工具，也是古生物界进入文献的主要门户。在过去的十年中，222位投稿人收集了30121篇参考文献，808,807条分类发生记录，以及对120,842个分类单元的分类意见262,909条。它的网站以一系列数据输入、查询、下载和分析工具为特色。它与GBIF和chronos集成在一起，并提供了几种Web服务。它由一个由16名成员组成的咨询委员会管理，其中既有贡献者，也有来自盟国组织的代表。PaleoDB的活动已导致51名不同资深作者撰写了101篇官方出版物，它在3000多个维基百科页面上被引用为参考文献。它在2006年古生物学未来研究方向讲习班的报告中被列为重要资源，此后从三个主要古生物学会为其教育活动提供的资金有限。通过志愿人员的努力，继续在三个网站上提供镜像和基线行政和技术支持，但需要实质性开发新的基础设施。该项目的目标包括加强网络服务，以便使用大型门户网站，如生命百科全书；与化石记录文件和TreeBase等相关数据库交换数据；与古门户网站和各博物馆藏品数据库整合；创建涉及系统发育、地层学、地质年代学和地球化学的新工具和数据表。例如，这些改进将使地质学家能够获得关于地层剖面的动态综合信息，或使生物学家能够快速可靠地校准分子钟。

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.