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A call to the custodians of deep time

Nature volume 462, pages 282–283 (2009)Cite this article

Palaeontologists must model the causes of biodiversity rather than simply cataloguing fossils, says Douglas Erwin, as they curate the only record of ecosystems undamaged by humans.

Only by understanding what governs diversity can we settle arguments about how it has changed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Douglas Erwin is in the Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA and at the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. erwind@si.edu,

    Douglas Erwin

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  1. Douglas Erwin
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See Editorial, page 251 , biodiversity special at http://www.nature.com/darwin and palaeontology podcast at http://go.nature.com/UuNpgJ

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Erwin, D. A call to the custodians of deep time. Nature 462, 282–283 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/462282a

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