FRAGMENTED DIVERSITY: HOW INCLUDING FRAGMENTAL DATA AFFECTS MEASURES OF BIODIVERSITY

Collecting internally consistent counts of paleontological taxa is essential for quantifying patterns and changes in diversity both in modern biology and in the Deep Time of paleontology. However, counting procedures vary from worker to worker as well as being driven by the needs of individual experiments. When this data is then agglomerated into larger data bases, any biases inherent in the counting mechanism are incorporated into the larger data base in ways that may be difficult to extract.

To quantify the magnitude of this bias in a well understood taxon with very few moving parts, bivalve remains from samples of the Fort Thompson Formation (Pleistocene, Florida) were analyzed. Types of bivalve remains included whole valves, hinge fragments and other fragments. The data were analyzed to determine both if the fragments were sampling the same larger subsample of the Fort Thompson Formation at the collection site, as well as which type of data or combination of data yielded the greatest yield of new species per samples processed. Standard diversity measures will also be compared to determine which yield consistent results when fragments are added to the counting procedure.