Wang Steve C, Marshall Charles R
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA
Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Biol Lett. 2016 Apr;12(4). doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0989.
Because the fossil record is incomplete, the last fossil of a taxon is a biased estimate of its true time of extinction. Numerous methods have been developed in the palaeontology literature for estimating the true time of extinction using ages of fossil specimens. These methods, which typically give a confidence interval for estimating the true time of extinction, differ in the assumptions they make and the nature and amount of data they require. We review the literature on such methods and make some recommendations for future directions.
由于化石记录不完整，一个分类单元的最后一块化石对其真正灭绝时间的估计存在偏差。古生物学文献中已经开发出许多方法，用于根据化石标本的年代来估计真正的灭绝时间。这些方法通常会给出一个估计真正灭绝时间的置信区间，它们在所作假设以及所需数据的性质和数量方面存在差异。我们回顾了关于此类方法的文献，并对未来的发展方向提出了一些建议。
