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Abstract Most species exhibit morphological stasis following speciation, and this is a key feature of the concept of punctuated equilibria. Stasis results in species often having long durations on geological timescales. Durational data are fundamental to many types of paleobiological analyses and are ideally based on occurrence data represented by specimens in museum collections. Often, however, durational data are presented without supporting information about voucher specimens that document stratigraphic ranges, including first and last appearances. We use the iconic Devonian trilobiteEldredgeops ranato demonstrate that durational data can be challenging to determine at multiple taxonomic levels. Further, we show that different datasets—including Sepkoski’s published databases, the Paleobiology Database, and iDigBio—give discordant results concerning first and last occurrences. We argue that paleontologists should adopt two general best practices to help address these problems. First, systematists should clearly identify voucher specimens that represent stratigraphic occurrences of species. Second, we recommend that high-quality photographs of occurrence vouchers be placed in open access websites and be assigned public domain licensing before being paywalled by journals. Such voucher images also have a role to play in training artificial intelligence (AI) systems that will be applied to future paleobiological questions.
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The critical importance of vouchers in genomics
A voucher is a permanently preserved specimen that is maintained in an accessible collection. In genomics, vouchers serve as the physical evidence for the taxonomic identification of genome assemblies. Unfortunately, the vast majority of vertebrate genomes stored in the GenBank database do not refer to voucher specimens. Here, we urge researchers generating new genome assemblies to deposit voucher specimens in accessible, permanent research collections, and to link these vouchers to publications, public databases, and repositories. We also encourage scientists to deposit voucher specimens in order to recognize the work of local field biologists and promote a diverse and inclusive knowledge base, and we recommend best practices for voucher deposition to prevent taxonomic errors and ensure reproducibility and legality in genetic studies.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1754417
- PAR ID:
- 10284405
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- eLife
- Volume:
- 10
- ISSN:
- 2050-084X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68264
