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., horse and zebra) 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 116.2 K fossil specimens. These include individual points that are unique, i.e., only occurring in one of these databases, as well as 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 towards 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）现生物种（如马、斑马）如今除南极洲外，在各大陆均有广泛分布。以化石为代表的马属已灭绝物种，在上新世时期便已广泛分布，更新世时期分布范围更广。为探究“大数据”在（古）生物地理学分析中的应用效能，我们从iDigBio、古生物数据库（Paleobiology Database）、VertNet、BISON、Neotoma以及全球生物多样性信息设施（GBIF）共6个数据库中，挖掘并进一步梳理了马属物种的位置记录（纬度、经度）与化石出现数据。这些数据库的选取基于我们对相关数据聚合渠道的先验认知。我们同时意识到，这些数据库的目标与数据来源各不相同，因此可为广泛分布的分类群马属（Equus）的时空分布格局提供极具价值的对比研究素材。从上述6个数据源中挖掘马属数据，共得到合计12.38万条位置记录，其中包含11.62万件化石标本。这些记录包含仅在单个数据库中出现的唯一点位，以及在多个数据库中重复收录的点位。在这6个数据库中，iDigBio、古生物数据库（Paleobiology Database）与GBIF被认为是马属研究场景中最具实用价值的数据源。多数数据库对北美地区的记录存在偏向性，这限制了我们对马属在该大陆以外区域的时空实际分布格局进行重建。尽管马属（Equus）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，这类生物多样性数据库仍难以解答与演化动态、灭绝地理相关的核心科学问题。