max-bodysize-evol: Evolution of Maximum Body Size Through the Phanerozoic

• Main Authors: SciMed Solutions, Liu, Xianhua, Lapp, Hilmar
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2015
• Subjects: body size; trait evolution; size evolution; database; Blue whale
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19028

Database and online application for body size information for many of the largest species to occur within biological groups over the history of life, from single cells billions of years ago to the blue whale of today. The purpose of collecting data of this type is to investigate the pattern of maximum body size throughout Earth's history.Records in the database include size information about plants and animals, such as length and width or body volume; and additional information such as classification, general environment, and when it lived. The data are tied to published scientific sources; are searchable by geologic time periods, organism type, or environment; and can be downloaded into excel or csv tables. The database and insights obtained from it have been published here: Payne,J.L., Boyer, A.G., Brown, J.H., Finnegan, S., Kowaleski, M., Krause, R.A., Lyons, S.k., McClain, C.R., McShea, D.W., Novack-Gottshall, P.M., Smith, F.A., Stempien, J.A., Wang, S.C. 2009. Two-phase increase in the maximum size of life over 3.5 billion years reflects biological innovation and environmental opportunity. PNAS Vol 106(1):24-27.doi/10.1073/pnas.0806314106 The full dataset has been deposited in the Dryad repository: Payne JL, Boyer AG, Brown JH, Finnegan S, Kowaleski M, Krause Jr. RA, Lyons SK, McClain CR, McShea DW, Novack-Gottshall PM, Smith FA, Stempien JA, Wang SC (2008) Data from: Two-phase increase in the maximum size of life over 3.5 billion years reflects biological innovation and environmental opportunity.Dryad Digital Repository.http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.223 This is the version underlying the online Maximum Bodysize Database at http://bodysize.nescent.org. Note that the application source codeuses versions of Ruby and Ruby on Rails that are at end-of-life and no longer supported for bug and security fixes. Those wishing to stand up the application and database should take this into consideration.Upgrading to current or still supported versions has been determined as non-trivial and requiring significant ...