Who should I contact?
General queries, bug reports, and feature requests should go to John Alroy, the Database Coordinator. Questions and comments about individual data records should go to the contributor who authorized the data.

What data are now in the Database?
We maintain full descriptions of each of our Online Systematics Archives. You can also see what we know about the taxonomy of a group by generating a classification. It's easy to tell what collection and occurrence data are in the Database by generating data summary tables. For example, you can get counts of fossil collections within geological periods, or by continent.

What is the database structure?
The Database currently includes nine main tables: published references, taxonomic names, taxonomic synonymies and classifications, primary collection data, taxonomic occurrences, reidentifications of occurrences, and three tables describing geological time scales. Additional scientific tables track ecological and taphonomic attributes of higher taxa and species, measurements of specimens, and data about the digital fossil images on the site. There are also a number of bookkeeping tables. The tables are tied together relationally with record ID numbers. At a later date we may add tables to handle phylogenetic relationships, ecomorphological attributes, stratigraphic sections, radioisotopic age estimates, and other data.

How is the Paleobiology Database funded?
The Paleobiology Database's core facility is funded by charitable contributions, and its mirror servers are operated independently. The Database's summer course is funded by a consortium of paleontological societies. Data entry projects are funded by grants to individual Database members. The Database originally was funded from 2000 to 2006 by grant from the National Science Foundation's Biocomplexity program, and also has received funding from NSF's Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology program.

How is the Database organized?
The Database has a main office at NCEAS that houses the Database coordinator, software developer, and database manager. We maintain a mirror server at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The Database serves as a repository for other organizations such as the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems database and Paleogeographic Atlas Project. General issues are discussed by an Advisory Board that meets once a year and communicates over an e-mail list.

How is the Advisory Board organized?
Currently, the Board consists of up to 16 members. At least one member is selected from each of the subdisciplines of invertebrate paleontology, invertebrate paleontology, micropaleontology, paleobotany, taphonomy, and vertebrate paleontology. The Database Coordinator is an ex officio member. Most members are Database authorizers, but representatives of other database organizations are included. Each year at least three members are rotated off the Board. Terms are three years long, and members may serve multiple consecutive terms.

The current Board members are:

J. Alroy 2000 - present M. Benton 2006 - 2009 M. Carrano 2005 - 2009 J. Crampton 2006 - 2009 F. Fürsich 2000 - 2008 P. Gensel 2003 - 2009 W. Kiessling 2003 - 2007 D. Lazarus 2006 - 2009

M. Patzkowsky 2000 - 2008 R. Plotnick 2005 - 2009 D. Remsen 2006 - 2009 P. Sadler 2006 - 2009 D. Smith 2003 - 2007 M. Uhen 2003 - 2007 L. Villier 2006 - 2009 P. Wilf 2006 - 2009

The previous Board members are:

How did the Database come into existence?
The Paleobiology Database originated in the NCEAS-funded Phanerozoic Marine Paleofaunal Database initiative, which operated from August 1998 through August 2000. Since then, it has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation. You may view the text of the 1998 NCEAS proposal.

Who is currently participating?
Please see our participants web page.

Who can join the Paleobiology Database?
Database membership is open to all professional researchers who agree to abide by Database policy and contribute a significant amount of data. There is no charge for membership or any other service provided by the Database. Conversely, the Database will not make payments to receive existing data sets. By "professional," we normally mean having a track record of publication in peer-reviewed paleontology journals. Most contributors have doctoral degrees. However, serious researchers without graduate-level training also may be considered for membership. We also expect that contributors will work largely independently of any academic supervisor, as opposed to using data collected by a supervisor. If you don't fit these criteria but do want to contribute, you might consider entering data under the authorization of a formal Database member who is in your local area. No formal procedure needs to be followed to become a data enterer. Please see our list of members for contact information. If you do wish to join as an independent contributor, please see our guidelines for joining the Database and then write to the database coordinator.

What is a Paleobiology Database working group?
The Database organizes "working groups" of database contributors that collaborate on large-scale, long-term research projects. See our working group page for details.

What is a research group, and how can I form one?
In addition to working groups, the Database also includes less formal research groups. The purpose of a research group is to facilitate sharing of otherwise private data by researchers who are collaborating on a study. If you are a contributor, you may form a group or add members to a group at any time, without having to obtain permission from anyone. Just write the database coordinator stating the name of the group and its members. Conversely, the Database will not add members to your group unless you want us to, even when researchers working in related areas independently join the Database.

Who has access to the data?
We encourage making all contributed data publicly accessible. However, all faunal and floral data sets entered into our system may be protected so that they are not viewable either by any other users (your private data) or by anyone outside of your research group (your group data). Protection is limited for up to two years after date of entry for previously published data, and up to five years for unpublished data. Your own password will allow you to view research group-readable data belonging to any group that includes you. Protected data cannot be accessed by any of our scripts or in any other way unless the appropriate password is provided. The only exceptions are the reference search and taxonomy scripts, which need to access all the reference and taxonomy data because there is little subjective interpretation and we need to avoid duplicate entry of published data.

Can I upload data into the Database?
We are happy to accept paleontological data files for upload. However, we do have some criteria that must be met first. Specifically, all of the following should be true:

• The contributor already is a Paleobiology Database member, or the Advisory Board has approved making the contributor a member after discussing the proposed upload.
• The data already are in electronic form.
• Entering the data by hand into the Database would be extremely time consuming.
• The data include most, if not necessarily all, of our key fields (e.g., for a collection record we'd like country, lat/long, period, reference).
• A good-faith effort has been made to get the data into Database format.
• A good-faith effort has been made to identify and remove data that replicate existing Database data.
• The contributor intends to maintain and augment the data on our system using our software, or else the contributor has no plans to do this on any system.

What is considered an official Paleobiology Database publication?
We consider any paper to be an official publication if: (a) it uses data taken from the Database; (b) it results from research conducted as part of a Database research group meeting; or (c) it results from research conducted while the author was funded by the Database. Because we maintain a list of such publications, please notify us as soon as any such paper is accepted for publication and the final version is ready to be sent out. We will then give the publication a number and add it to the list. We ask that you acknowledge the Database by adding a line to your paper saying "This is Paleobiology Database publication #..." We also encourage you to submit your electronic data files to be archived and made available on the web site, although this is strictly optional.

Are contributed data sets electronic publications?
Yes: contributors may consider their contributed data sets to be electronic publications. In particular, our Online Systematics Archives are considered official electronic publications. To have your Archive listed, simply write the database coordinator a letter saying that you consider a certain block of data to be a publication, and then giving a title and list of authors. Of course, electronic publications on this list can refer only to publicly released data.

How should the data be cited?
You can cite the Database in either of two ways. First, you can cite the specific electronic publication that you used (see above). Second, you can refer to a specific download from the Paleobiology Database, giving the date and parameters of the download. Here is an example:

"The data were downloaded from the Paleobiology Database on 31 December, 2000, using the group name 'marine' and the following parameters: time intervals = Carboniferous and Permian, region = Europe, paleoenvironment = marine, class = Bivalvia."

What events has the Database organized?
The Database oversees and annual summer course in Santa Barbara that is sponsored by collaborating organizations such as the Paleontological Society, Palaeontological Association, NCEAS, and NESCent. The Database sponsored the International Paleobiology Database Symposium in Berlin in March, 2003. Members of Paleobiology Database working groups met regularly from 1998 through 2006 to plan research and data collection, analyze data, and work on manuscripts. Meetings through August, 2000 were of the original Phanerozoic Marine Paleofaunal Database group.