Database tables, data fields, and standardized entries were designed by the members of the ETE Consortium: Anna K. Behrensmeyer, John Damuth, William A. DiMichele, Mikael Fortelius, Conrad Labandeira, Richard Potts, and Scott L. Wing. Additional valuable contributions to the fields and entries were made by John Alroy, Richard Bateman, David Begun, Robyn J. Burnham, Ann Chipperfield, Mikael Fortelius, Carol Hotton, Christine M. Janis, Pamela San Miguel, Hans-Dieter Sues and Nancy Todd. In addition, we would like to thank all the participants in the 1987 ETE Conference (Beherensmeyer, et al. 1992), particularly the members of the working groups on Ecological Characterization of Fossil Plants and Taxon-free Characterization of Animal Communities. However, the final choices of data elements represented here were those of the authors, and no responsibility for errors attaches to the conferees. Elizabeth Bailey Sues participated in programming early versions of the computer interface for the ETE Database, and her technical expertise improved many aspects of the Database design and ETE's interactive software. Geraldine McBrinn has managed the system, database, and network administration of the ETE Database at the Smithsonian and has been instrumental in the draft and the publication of this edition of the manual. We also thank Stan Blum and Lars Werdelin for many stimulating conversations on matters concerning paleontological databases. The illustration on the title page is from a design by Mary Parish of the Paleobiology Department, National Museum of Natural History. The Smithsonian Institution has provided initial and continuing funding for the ETE Program, which supports, among other things, the Consortium's activities at the National Museum of Natural History. The University of California at Santa Barbara has provided much needed support for the Consortium's computer activities in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology (UCSB). The Consortium's activities at Santa Barbara have also been supported by National Science Foundation grants (DIR-9202183, DBI-9600253) to John Damuth. The Consortium's activities at Helsinki have been supported by the Academy of Finland and by the European Science Foundation. This volume is contribution number 52 of the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Consortium.
ANNA K. BEHRENSMEYER is a Curator in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, who works in the fields of paleoecology and taphonomy, in particular studying the Miocene-Pleistocene faunas of Africa and southern Asia.
JOHN DAMUTH is an Assistant Research Biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Research Associate in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. His research concerns the evolutionary ecology of living and fossil mammals, biological scaling relationships, and evolutionary processes operating on multiple hierarchical levels and on long time-scales.
WILLIAM A. DIMICHELE is a Curator in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, who studies the paleoecology and systematics of late Paleozoic plants.
MIKAEL FORTELIUS is a Professor of Ecological Palaeontology in the Department of Geology at the University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, who studies the evolutionary paleoecology of Neogene land mammal faunas of Eurasia.
CONRAD LABANDEIRA is a Curator in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, who studies the evolutionary paleoecology of insects and their interactions with plants.
RICHARD POTTS is a Curator in the Department of Anthropology and Paleoanthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, who studies Plio-Pleistocene hominid paleoecology and behavior.
SCOTT L. WING is a Curator in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, who studies the evolutionary paleoecology of Cretaceous and Tertiary floras.
© Copyright 1997 by the ETE Consortium
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America
ISBN (paper): 0-9635304-2-9
ISBN (spiral): 0-9635304-3-7
Published by
Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Consortium
Department of Paleobiology
NHB MRC 121
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560