sepkoski_curve {sepkoski}

Plot Sepkoski's evolutionary fauna

Description

This function plots Sepkoski's evolutionary fauna (Sepkoski, 1981), using the Sepkoski (2002) fossil marine animal genera compendium (i.e. the included sepkoski dataset). No changes have been made to any taxonomic names in this dataset. However, first and last appearance intervals have been updated to stages from the International Geological Time Scale 2022. As such, minor differences may be observed to previously published plots.

Usage

sepkoski_curve(
  title = NULL,
  height = 0.05,
  cols = NULL,
  int_lab = TRUE,
  int_size = 1,
  fill = FALSE,
  legend = TRUE,
  legend_size = 1
)

Arguments

title

character. Title of the plot. Defaults to NULL.

height

numeric. Height of the Geological Time Scale relative to the plot area. Defaults to 0.05.

cols

character. The colours of the polygons in the plot area.

int_lab

logical. Should interval labels be added? Defaults to TRUE.

int_size

numeric. The size of the interval labels. Defaults to 1.

fill

logical. Should interval boxes be plotted with the ICS colour scheme? Defaults to FALSE.

legend

logical. Should a legend be added to the plot? Defaults to TRUE.

legend_size

numeric. The size of the legend. Defaults to 1.

Details

Taxa are assigned to evolutionary fauna (EF) categories as follows:

• Cambrian EF: Trilobita, Polychaeta, Tergomya ("Monoplacophora"), Inarticulata, and Hyolithomorpha.

• Paleozoic EF: Anthozoa, Articulata, Asteroidea, Cephalopoda, Crinoidea, Ostracoda, Ophiuroidea, Somasteroidea, and Stenolaemata.

• Modern EF: Bivalvia, Chondrichthyes, Demospongia, Echinoidea, Gastropoda, Gymnolaemata, Malacostraca, and Osteichthyes.

Value

No return value. Function is used to plot Sepkoski's curve with user-defined arguments.

References

Sepkoski, J. J. (1981). A factor analytic description of the Phanerozoic marine fossil record. Paleobiology, 7(1), pp. 36–53.

Sepkoski, J. J. (2002). A compendium of fossil marine animal genera. Bulletins of American Paleontology, 363, pp. 1–560.

Examples

# Plot curve with default arguments
sepkoski_curve()

# Plot curve with user-defined arguments
sepkoski_curve(title = "Sepkoski's curve",
               col = "black",
               fill = TRUE,
               legend = FALSE)