Emma M. Dunne

Estimating diversity patterns from the fossil record is essential for understanding the factors that shape biodiversity. The Jurassic/Cretaceous transition 143.1 million years (Ma) ago is a particular interval of pronounced ecological turnover accompanied by a global sharp diversity decline, disproportionately affecting larger and more specialised terrestrial taxa such as Sauropoda. Sauropods are a diverse group of large herbivorous dinosaurs, considered a good model for studying long-term biodiversity trends because of their prominent ecological roles and abundant fossil record. In this study, we analyse paleodiversity patterns for Diplodocoidea as a whole and for each of its subclades. Diplodocoidea is a subgroup of neosauropods that includes three main subclades: Dicraeosauridae, Diplodocidae, and Rebbachisauridae. The Flagellicaudata (= Dicraeosauridae + Diplodocidae) were notably affected by the Jurassic/Cretaceous faunal turnover, whereas Rebbachisauridae originated and persisted into the Early to mid-Cretaceous. Our key findings are: (1) high diversity during the Late Jurassic; (2) a sharp decline in diversity just before or during the Jurassic/Cretaceous transition; (3) a diversity peak in the Early Cretaceous Aptian stage; (4) overall higher Diplodocoidea diversity in the Early Cretaceous compared to the Late Jurassic; and (5) distinct geographic distributions, with Flagellicaudata restricted to high latitudes, while Rebbachisauridae occupied the full latitudinal range of Diplodocoidea. Our results suggest that the observed paleodiversity patterns were likely influenced by abiotic factors, and that Flagellicaudata and Rebbachisauridae may have been subject to distinct climatic constraints, potentially reflecting different ecological strategies. Additionally, this study underscores the impact of sampling biases on diversity estimates and challenges previous assumptions about sauropod diversity patterns, opening new directions for future research.

The fossil record is key to elucidating past biodiversity dynamics, yet it remains incomplete and non-uniform, governed by factors such as sedimentation rates, species’ range and body size, and sampling effort. How these biases distort inferences on evolutionary trends remains poorly understood. Here, we simulate a future fossil record of present-day land mammals to quantify the extent to which real evolutionary patterns can be recovered from fragmentary fossil data. Species are filtered according to sediment availability, species’ range and body size, and spatial and taxonomic sampling biases under three preservation rates, and then systematically pruned from a baseline mammal phylogeny before analyses of body mass and diet evolution through phylogenetic comparative methods. We find that biological and taxonomic filters strongly skew these inferences, while spatial filters do not significantly distort them. Our results provide first-order estimates of how fossil record incompleteness can bias our interpretation of deep-time biodiversity change.

Science is influenced by its political and social context, and palaeontology is no exception. Social forces such as colonialism and the resource imbalance favouring the Global North have produced systematic biases in how we reconstruct the Earth’s past. In this study, we examine how colonial legacies and historical conflicts have influenced the development of palaeontology in Ukraine from 1721 to 2025. Our analysis of 1,968 publications on vertebrate palaeontology reveals a profound and long-lasting impact of Russian imperialism. This influence differs from “parachute science” commonly documented in many Global South countries. Instead of simply extracting fossils for metropolitan collections, Russian imperial policy reshaped Ukrainian palaeontology itself conceptually, taxonomically, and geographically. This occurred through the suppression of Ukrainian scientists, restrictions on the use of the Ukrainian language, and the disproportionate involvement of metropolitan researchers in studying Ukraine’s most scientifically valuable fossil material. Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 has disrupted these entrenched colonial structures and catalysed a rapid internationalization of Ukrainian vertebrate palaeontology.

The Paleobiology Database is an online, non-governmental, non-profit public resource for paleontological data. It is organized and operated by a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, international group of paleobiological researchers. This is the second edition of the volume designed to be a comprehensive guide for Paleobiology Database users, both General and Contributory. It covers most database uses from data retrieval and mapping to data contribution of all types. It contains numerous examples to illustrate database use as well as definitions of terms and additional links to numerous other sources. We hope that this user guide will help all users access the great volume of data in the Paleobiology Database and lead others to start and continue to add data to the system.

The digital revolution has transformed palaeontology through the development of openly accessible, community-driven databases that underpin some of the most complex and large-scale empirical studies of the history of life on Earth. These systems safeguard high-effort, volunteered data and have revealed major macroevolutionary patterns, including the ‘Big 5’ mass extinctions. These efforts also represent remarkable global scientific and financial investment, which is continually required to support the next generation of databases and associated research. Here we conducted a survey of 118 palaeontological and allied Earth science databases, analysing their diversity dynamics, including origination and extinction rates. We show that approximately 85% of all community-curated databases have lifespans of less than 15 years, putting decades of investment at risk. We show that database creation effort has increased in the past 30 years, with peaks in database loss related to 5-year funding cycles. We advocate for strategies to enhance database longevity, including sustained funding models, stronger institutional support and modular backend architectures that better link international community databases to each other and to fossil specimens.

The digital revolution has transformed paleontology through the development of open-access, community-driven databases that underpin some of the most impactful research in biodiversity, climate change, and extinction dynamics. These systems safeguard high-effort, volunteered data and have revealed major macroevolutionary patterns, including mass extinctions. However, of 118 paleontological and Earth science databases reviewed, 95% had lifespans under 15 years, putting decades of investment at risk. As paleontological data infrastructures enter a third generation—marked by modular design, improved data provenance, and cross-platform integration—there is growing potential to support multi-scalar, interdisciplinary research across Earth and Life sciences. We advocate for strategies to enhance database longevity, including sustained funding models, stronger institutional support, and modular backend architectures that better link international community databases to each other and to fossil specimens.

The origin of pterosaurs, the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight, is poorly understood, owing to the temporal and morphological gaps that separate them from their closest non-flying relatives, the lagerpetids. Although both groups coexisted during the Late Triassic, their limited sympatry is currently unexplained, indicating that ecological partitioning, potentially linked to palaeoclimate, influenced their early evolution. Here we analysed pterosauromorph (pterosaur + lagerpetid) palaeobiogeography using phylogeny-based probabilistic methods and integrating fossil occurrences with palaeoclimate data. Our results reveal distinct climatic preferences and dispersal histories: lagerpetids tolerated a broader range of conditions, including arid belts, enabling a widespread distribution from the Middle to early Late Triassic. Conversely, pterosaurs preferred wetter environments, resulting in a patchier geographical distribution that expanded only as humidity increased in the Late Triassic, probably following the Carnian Pluvial Event. This major environmental disturbance, potentially driven by changes in CO₂-related thermal constraints and/or palaeogeography, appears to have had a key role in shaping early pterosauromorph evolution by promoting spatial segregation and distinct climatic niche occupation.

In the last 50 years, the field of paleobiology has undergone a computational revolution that opened multiple new avenues for recording, storing, and analyzing vital data on the history of life on Earth. With these advances, the amount of data available for research has grown, but so too has our responsibility to ensure that our data tools and infrastructures continue to innovate in order to best serve our diverse community. This review focuses on data equity in paleobiology, an aspirational goal, wherein data in all forms are collected, stored, shared and analyzed in a responsible, equitable, and sustainable manner. While there have been many advancements across the last five decades, inequities persist. Our most significant challenges relate to several interconnected factors, including ethical data collection, sustainable infrastructure, socioeconomic biases, and global inequalities. We highlight the ways in which data equity is critical for paleobiology and stress the need for collaborative efforts across the paleobiological community to urgently address these data equity challenges. We also provide recommendations for actions from individuals, teams, academic publishers, and academic societies in order to continue enhancing data equity and ensuring an equitable and sustainable future for our field.

Dinosaurs were dominant members of terrestrial ecosystems throughout the Mesozoic, yet only recently are studies beginning to illuminate the key role of global climate variation in controlling dinosaur biodiversity, global distribution, and macroevolution. Our work uses statistical, biogeographic, and phylogenetic comparative approaches with comprehensive fossil occurrence data and paleoclimate data from general circulation models to quantitatively examine key hypotheses connecting patterns of dinosaur diversity and evolution with climatic conditions. We examined the impact of climate change in driving early dinosaur evolution across the end-Triassic mass extinction (ETME). Our results demonstrate that the geographic distribution of early sauropodomorphs was constrained by climate and following the ETME, the expansion of climate zones facilitated the geographic expansion of sauropodomorphs and other dinosaurs. Evolutionary model-fitting analyses provide evidence for an important evolutionary shift from cooler to warmer climatic niches during the origin of Sauropoda. This same approach is also revealing the relationship between climatic conditions and dinosaur diversity in the Jurassic to Cretaceous, with implications for our understanding of the origins of sauropod gigantism and the evolution of herbivory. Our results suggest that primary productivity was a key climatic factor in driving sauropod evolution and promoting the evolution of larger body sizes, supporting the hypothesis that gigantism was facilitated by the increasing availability of high quality vegetation. Analyses of dinosaur paleoclimatic niche space show evidence of niche partitioning between herbivorous theropods and ‘traditional’ herbivorous dinosaurs (e.g. sauropods), indicating that climatic changes may have influenced evolutionary innovations related to dinosaur diet. Further work examining the relationship between dinosaur diversity and changes in vegetation using state-of-the-art vegetation models will illuminate the key role played by environmental change in controlling dinosaur diversity and evolution throughout the Mesozoic.

Temnospondyls had a remarkable worldwide distribution throughout the Triassic at a time of periodic arid climates, and were a stable component of Triassic terrestrial ecosystems. Given the postulated ancestral relationship between temnospondyls and modern lissamphibians it is pertinent to recognize that the group may have exhibited some degree of ecological resilience and adaptability. Despite this higher level of plasticity, temnospondyls might still have been susceptible to environmental and climate changes. Although fossil sites are distributed sporadically, we try to circumvent the present geographical and geological biases by combining actual fossil occurrences with environmental conditions derived from general circulation models. Here, we employ species distribution modelling to examine the palaeogeographic and palaeoclimatic distribution of European temnospondyls during the transition from Middle to Late Triassic. The model shows different suitable areas for temnospondyl habitats that give new potential insights on the biogeographic distribution patterns and dispersal potential. We suggest that the Central European Basin functioned as a focal point for Triassic temnospondyl diversification and spread. Moreover, this paper provides the first application of species distribution modelling for Triassic temnospondyls and aids in understanding their climatic niche occupation and evolution.