- What is the Paleobiology Database?
- The Paleobiology Database (PBDB) is a non-governmental, non-profit public resource for paleontological data. It has been organized and operated by a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, international group of paleobiological researchers. Its purpose is to provide global, collection-based occurrence and taxonomic data for organisms of all geological ages, as well data services to allow easy access to data for independent development of analytical tools, visualization software, and applications of all types. The Database’s broader goal is to encourage and enable data-driven collaborative efforts that address large-scale paleobiological questions.
- How did the Database come into existence and how is it funded?
- The Paleobiology Database originated in the NCEAS-funded Phanerozoic Marine Paleofaunal Database initiative, which operated from August 1998 through August 2000. It was supported from 2000 to 2008 and from 2010 to the present by the US National Science Foundation and has also received funding from the Australian Research Council. Many science-driven data entry projects have been funded by grants to individuals around the world.
John Alroy (Macquarie University) was one of the original founders of the PBDB, along with Charles Marshal. John was instrumental in the development of the PBDB in several different capacity. John served as the Database Administrator from 2000 to January of 2013, when the new role of Database Director was created, and John held that role until September of 2013.
Primary IT development is currently being carried out by the tech team, mostly in the Peters lab at UW-Madison, with support from the NSF. For more details, please see the Funding and People pages.
- Who should I contact about the database?
- Bug reports and feature requests related to the website should go on the issue tracking page (requires a free Github account).
General data-quality issues can be directed to the ExCom. Questions, comments, and suggested corrections regarding individual data records should be sent directly to the contributor who authorized the data. See our list of contributors for contact information.
To contribute data, sign up for a contributor account. To contribute analysis tools to the PBDB, contact the Executive Committee Secretary.
- How do I report bugs?
- Our bug tracking is done via Github. If you find any problems in the website, Navigator, or the API, please let us know on the issue tracking page (requires free Github account).
If you have a data-related complaint, please e-mail info@paleobiodb.org instead.
- What data are now in the Database?
- PBDB maintains full descriptions of many large datasets in the database in our Online Systematics Archives. You can also see what we know about the taxonomy of a group by generating a classification.
- Where do paleogeographic coordinates come from?
- Collections in the Paleobiology Database are assigned present-day coordinates and geological ages. These two pieces of information are combined with paleogeographic rotation models to obtain reconstructed paleogeographic positions. Collections without present-day coordinates or a geologic age cannot be rotated.
The Paleobiology Database formerly used rotations provided to us by Christopher Scotese (http://www.scotese.com) as the default. The Scotese rotations are still available for use, but are no longer the default. They can be accessed by selecting different download options from the API or download form.
The Scotese rotations were succeeded as the default option in 2014 by a rotation model created by Mike Gurnis, Mark Turner, and colleagues at EarthByte, which we refer to as the GPlates model. It is now the default model.
Our implementation of the GPlates model was updated on October 24, 2016. The update corrected a bug that was introduced during our conversion from the now defunct GPlates data service over to our own rotation service. It was also updated to the latest version of the EarthByte model. Paleogeographic analyses conducted during this transitional period - from July 26, 2016 to October 24, 2016 - may be inaccurate.
The appropriate citation for the current GPlates model is as follows:
Wright et al. (2013) Towards community-driven paleogeographic reconstructions: integrating open-access paleogeographic and paleobiology data with plate tectonics. Biogeosciences 10:1529-1541; doi:10.5194/bg-10-1529-2013.
- Who owns the Paleobiology Database?
- All records are made available to the public based on a Creative Commons license that requires attribution before use. Complete attribution includes the Paleobiology Database as well as all references and authorizers supplying utilized records.
Paleobiology Database is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International License. 
- How is the Database organized?
- The Paleobiology Database is managed by the Executive Committee, which sets overall database policy, oversees matters related to the PBDB membership and access to data. The Committee consists of 12 members, including a Chair and a Secretary. The Chair is currently Mark D. Uhen and its Secretary is Matthew Clapham. Primary software development is being carried out at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the direction of Shanan Peters and Michael McClennen.
The PBDB also has an External Advisory Board that advises the Executive Committee on Database activities and policies and promotes the use of the Database among the scientific community and forges links to other scientific communities and the general public.
- Who can contribute to the Paleobiology Database?
- Database membership is open to all professional researchers who agree to abide by Database policy and contribute data. Most contributors have doctoral degrees, however, serious researchers without graduate-level training also may be considered. We expect that contributors will work largely independently of any academic supervisor, as opposed to using data collected by a supervisor. If you don't fit these criteria but do want to contribute, consider entering data under the authorization of a Database member. See our list of members for contact information and get in touch with them directly. If you do wish to join as a member, please contact the Secretary.
- Who has access to the data?
- Ultimately, everyone in the world has access to the data either through our display and visualization tools or through data services. We do allow researchers to embargo their own contributed data for short periods of time prior to their publication, but eventually all entered data becomes public and available to everyone. Protection is limited for up to one year after date of entry for previously published data, and up to five years for unpublished data.
- Can I upload data into the Database?
- We are able to accept paleontological data files for upload. However, PBDB needs some basic data types to be included in order to perform an upload. The best way to proceed is for you to become a member of the database first, see what kind of data we require, and then contact the Executive Committee Chair.
- Paleobiology Database Publications
- As with any public (and publicly funded) effort, we aim to keep track of our impact on science. Thus, PBDB is interested in tracking those publications that use our data. If you have a publication that uses data taken from PBDB, or a publication that results from research conducted while the author was funded specifically to work on or with PBDB, we would like to give the publication an official Paleobiology Database publication number. Please notify the Secretary as soon as any such paper is accepted for publication and the final version is ready to be sent out. We will then give the publication a number that you can add a line to your paper saying "This is Paleobiology Database publication #..." We also encourage you to submit your electronic data files to be archived and made available on the web site.
- PBDB E-Publications
- Many contributors consider their contributed data sets to be electronic publications. If you have entered or uploaded a coherent set of data (for example, a particular taxonomic group, time period, or geographic area) simply write to the Secretary about your data set. Be sure to include a description of the scope of the data set, and a list of contributor, along with a title for the data set. PBDB will then post an entry on our E-Publications list that will reference the data set.
- How should Paleobiology Database data be cited?
- You can cite the Paleobiology Database in several ways. First, you can cite the specific e- publication that you used (see above). Second, you can refer to a specific download from the PaleoBioDB, giving the date and parameters of the download. Here is an example:
The data were downloaded from the Paleobiology Database on 31 December, 2013, using the group name 'marine' and the following parameters: time intervals = Eocene and Oligocene, region = Europe, paleoenvironment = marine, Order = Cetacea.
In such a case, you may want to cite or acknowledge the people who contributed the bulk of the data to the database. We also strongly encourage that you create a secondary bibliography for work that uses large data sets. You can easily download all of the references that contributed to a dataset for this secondary bibliography. Many journals will accept a secondary bibliography as a supplementary material file, and this type of citation helps ensure that the hard work performed by members of our community collecting and describing fossil organisms gets acknowledged properly.
If you would like to acknowledge the Paleobiology Database in a talk or print material, please use one of the images below.
