The DinoBase Public Forum

4. What area of palaeontology do you think is most neglected?

Morphological variability. Many studies and projects focus on the most exceptional and new items in the fossil record. A opposed to that, when already knew, the detailed description of all the material leading to a better knowledge of morphological variability is often missing. As a matter of fact, investigating the evolutionary processes through geological times without this knowledge comes down to reassemble a jigsaw without having all the pieces. – OM

Whole branches of palaeontology are becoming neglected at the moment, because the number of experts on some groups is decreasing quickly. Systematic palaeontology is an essential background for palaeontological research as a whole, but it does not get the support it deserves - EB

I would say the philosophy of paleontology and evolution. Most people don't consider it important or relevant. We should all be taught to think more about the big picture. Ironically we might not have to answer these questions if we more clearly understood the philosophical limitations and potentials of our subject. For a shorter answer I would say heterochrony- but I am biased - ML

Integration of various subdisciplines, like combination of taphonomic / geological / biological data – RR

Osteological descriptions – DM

Revision of past research. Sorely needs to be done in MANY areas but there
is little interest or funding for this type of research - JO

Neglected, where? In science reporting & education? Making a "history  of earth and life through time" course a part of the high school curriculum –A2

It seems to be the case that everyone I know, or know through others pretty much cover the entire subject in terms of expertise. However, I'm very intrigued with the mammal-like reptiles and why these haven't been studied with the tenacity and vigour that dinosaurs have. These are the fork in the road as far as we are concerned, why don't we have children learning their names? – TF

My inner curmudgeon is urging me to say that not enough palaeontologists are writing good, basic, careful descriptions of the  taxa they study, although I would personally have to plead as guilty as (almost) anyone. However, I'll put forward the more good-humoured answer that the most neglected area of palaeontology is an entirely different discipline, namely zoology. This is changing for the better, but I still think that palaeontologists as a community should be paying more attention to the anatomy, biomechanics, behaviour and ecology of living animals when they're interpreting fossils. - CS

I don’t think that there is a problem with a lack of knowledge in geology, rather, that as palaeontologists we are either biologists or geologists. It can make it harder for even our colleagues to understand what we are on about. I feel that if anything palaeontology is still not a fully integrated discipline, as it moves closer to becoming one, palaeobiology may find itself more suited to a biological sciences department, with the stratigraphic side remaining as a geological subject? – A1

Alpha-taxonomy, I mean detailed, precise description of the taxa – AO

Lack of systematically collected geographic and abundance data – AM

Poor systematic work at the "family" through "phylum" range in most non-vertebrate animal lineages; as a result, there are probably a lot of paraphyletic and polyphyletic "taxa" among these groups –TH

Taxonomy is underestimated and should get more attention – A3

I cannot answer this question. But probably, from financial point of view, one would always jugde his own field to be the most neglected one... - EP

A lack of paleoecological information - LJ

Palaeobehavioural stuff. Admittedly a lot of it is speculative, although much of the evidence, such as ear-canal orientation in Acrocanthosaurus determining the angle of the snout in life, is quite stunning, but I feel stuff like phylogenetic analyses are missing the point. The thing that got most people into vertebrate palaeontology was the idea of giant monsters walking the earth. When a child sees Tyrannosaurus, they don't say "He's related to Tarbosaurus, Daspletosaurus and Albertosaurus", they say "He's the big one who eats the other dinosaurs".
The relationships amongst dinosaurs in an ecological sense are, to me, the most important part, as they bring to life the creatures of the past. Otherwise, you might as well be studying ordinary stones, and listing them on how similar they are. - SC

Paleontological foci are cyclical.  Problems were largely geological for a while; these days (for the past 30 years or so, since the advent of phylogenetic systematics in paleo), there's too much focus on generating cladograms, which requires neither geological knowledge nor field work. Certainly we _need_ those cladograms to construct and test various evolutionary hypotheses, so they're never going to go away, but when people have a problem publishing a paper that lacks a cladogram, it's gone too far. We're starting to slip away from this as people are doing interesting things with fossils (like FEA or extracting what appears to be unaltered organic material from Cretaceous theropods) that are useful and informative outside a phylogenetic context, as well as within one.  Geological aspects of vert paleo (if not paleo as a whole) have been largely ignored of late as more and more vertebrate paleontologists come out of biology programs, but eventually, I think, enough biological hypotheses will have been constructed that require geological testing that the pendulum will swing the other way. The smart paleontology students are coming out well versed in both biological and geological fields -- they are, to use the latest catch-phrase, "transdisciplinary." - JH

Taphonomy and the fossilization process. Everything that we think we know comes through that filter first, and when you stop and think about that fact, and about how little we understand about how fossils form (or don't, or are destroyed, or distorted, or...), it's pretty scary. This is an area in which the importance of the problem is all out of proportion compared to the effort that has been expended on it so far.  -MW


My comments:
While there is obviously some variation in the answers given here, a series of interlinked points on the ‘basics’ seem to be at the heart of matters here. It is obvious that many people want to see better alpha taxonomy (the fundamental basis of naming and describing new species), revision of old descriptions, and improved systematic analyses. As it happens I have a large post on this very subject waiting in the wings already, so I won’t say too much about it now. However, it is a genuine problem – if what you are using for your analysis is not actually a different species, or you think you are working on a fibula and it’s actually an ulna because the description was incorrect, you can add all kinds of horrible errors to your analyses.

However, not only is this kind of work time consuming (and in some respects dull) there are few people who really focus on it, many who do not do it at all, and little funding to support it (since again, the problem of impact factors rears its ugly head). As Jingmai points out, there is perhaps even less interest from researchers and especially research councils in funding revision work. Testability and repeatability are fundamental to science, and that goes too for basic descriptions and the associated interpretations of skeletons – is that a partial femur or a distorted humerus, is the lacrimal really missing or just crushed and / or dissolved, is that a fenestra in the skull or a hole left by damage? These need to be checked, and so much of our original description (for dinosaurs and pterosaurs at least) that we rely on are decades if not centuries old! Times (and scientific knowledge) have changed, but we still rely on work done 150 years ago  - would Cope and Marsh really describe things the same way now with what they would have access to?

If these basics are not done right it can (and indeed will) profoundly affect some analyses based on them, and all kinds of errors will be introduced. Sadly the structure of palaeontological research and the funding available inhibits our ability to do this work and the knock-on effects, while unlikely to be devastating, are clearly unhelpful at best, and are certainly actively damaging research.



Participants:
Anonymous 1, UK – A1
Anonymous 2, USA – A2
Anonymous 3, Austria – A3
Dr Eric Buffetaut, Paris – EB
Simon Clabby, Isle of Wight - SC
Tom Fletcher, Bristol – TF
Dr Jerry Harris, Utah - JH
Thomas Holtz, Maryland - TH
Dr Liu Jun, Beijing – LJ
Martin Lockley, Denver - ML
Dr Alistair McGowan, Aberdeen - AM
Dr Olivier Maridet, (French) Beijing – OM
Prof. David Martill, Portsmouth - DM
Jingmai O’Conner, Beijing (USA) – JO
Dr Attila Osi, Budapest - AO
Edina Prondvai, (Hungarian) Karlsruhe – EP
Prof. Robert Reisz, (Romanian) Canada - RR
Dr Corwin Sullivan, (Canadian) Beijing – CS
Dr Helmut Tischlinger, Eichstaett - HT
Dr Mathew Wedel, California - MW