Data from: Horses in the Cloud: big data exploration and mining of fossil and extant Equus (Mammalia: Equidae)

Extant species of the genus Equus (e.g., horses, asses, and zebras) have a widespread distribution today on all continents except Antarctica. Extinct species of Equus represented by fossils were likewise widely distributed in the Pliocene and even more so during the Pleistocene. In order to understand the efficacy of “big data” for (paleo)biogeographic analyses, location records (latitude, longitude) and fossil occurrences for the genus Equus were mined and further explored from six databases, including iDigBio, Paleobiology Database, VertNet, BISON, Neotoma, and GBIF. These were chosen from a priori knowledge of where relevant data might be aggregated. We also realized that these databases have different objectives and data sources and therefore would provide a useful comparative study of the widespread taxon Equus in space and time. The mining of Equus data from these six sources yielded a combined total of 123.8 K location records, including 116.2K fossil specimens. These include individual points that are unique, that is, only occurring in one of these databases, and those that are duplicated in multiple databases. Of the six databases, three (iDigBio, Paleobiology Database, and GBIF) were judged to be the most useful in the Equus use case. Most of the databases are biased toward North American records, thus limiting the reconstruction of the actual distribution of the genus Equus in space and time outside of this continent. Although Equus has a large number of digitally accessible records, fundamentally interesting questions pertaining to evolutionary dynamics and extinction geography are still a challenge for these kinds of biodiversity databases due primarily to the lack of sufficiently dense and precise temporal data.

马属（Equus）现存物种（如马、驴、斑马）现今除南极洲外，在各大洲均有广泛分布。以化石为代表的马属已灭绝物种，在上新世（Pliocene）即已广泛分布，而在更新世（Pleistocene）时期分布范围更为广阔。为探究"大数据"在（古）生物地理学分析中的应用效能，我们从六大数据库中检索并深入挖掘了马属物种的位置记录（纬度、经度）与化石产出数据，涉及的数据库包括iDigBio、古生物学数据库（Paleobiology Database）、VertNet、BISON、Neotoma及GBIF。本次选取的数据库均基于先验知识，即结合了相关数据的潜在聚集渠道。同时我们注意到，各数据库的目标与数据来源各不相同，因此可为广布分类单元马属的时空分布研究提供极具价值的对比分析基础。从上述六大数据库中获取的马属数据累计共计123.8千条位置记录，其中包含116.2千件化石标本。这些记录分为两类：仅在单一数据库中出现的独有点位，以及在多个数据库中重复收录的点位。在六大数据库中，iDigBio、古生物学数据库（Paleobiology Database）及GBIF被认为是本次马属研究场景中最具实用性的三个数据库。多数数据库的记录偏向北美地区，这限制了对该属在北美以外区域的时空分布格局的重建。尽管马属拥有大量可数字化获取的记录，但由于缺乏足够密集且精确的时序数据，针对该类群演化动态与灭绝地理的核心科学问题，此类生物多样性数据库仍难以给出有效解答。