The Origin and Early History of NOW as It Happened
Publication date
2023-08-09
Authors
Fortelius, Mikael
Agustí, Jordi
Bernor, Raymond L.
de Bruijn, Hans
van Dam, Jan A.
Damuth, John
Eronen, Jussi T.
Evans, Gudrun
van den Hoek Ostende, Lars W.
Janis, Christine M.
Editors
Advisors
Supervisors
Document Type
Part of book
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cc_by
Abstract
The NOW database of fossil mammals came to be through a confluence of several initiatives spanning multiple decades. The first public version of NOW database was released in 1996 and the first Advisory Board was established the year after. Originally, NOW stood for Neogene of the Old World but with the gradual expansion of the database the acronym was eventually reassigned to stand for New and Old Worlds. The structure of what would become NOW was originally cloned from the ETE database of the Smithsonian Institution and the first NOW version accessible over the internet was a node of the ETE database. The first standalone, online version of NOW was launched in 2005 and the first formal steering group was established in 2009. During its existence, NOW has been funded, directly or indirectly, by several organizations but fundamentally it has always been an unfunded community effort, dependent on voluntary work by the participants.
Keywords
Database, Ecometrics, Fossil Mammal, Functional Trait, Species List, Stratigraphic Age, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Ecology, Palaeontology
Citation
Fortelius, M, Agustí, J, Bernor, R L, de Bruijn, H, van Dam, J A, Damuth, J, Eronen, J T, Evans, G, van den Hoek Ostende, L W, Janis, C M, Jernvall, J, Kaakinen, A, von Koenigswald, W, Lintulaakso, K, Liu, L, Ataabadi, M M, Mittmann, H W, Pushkina, D, Saarinen, J, Sen, S, Sova, S, Säilä, L K, Tesakov, A, Vepsäläinen, J, Viranta, S, Vislobokova, I, Werdelin, L, Zhang, Z & Žliobaitė, I 2023, The Origin and Early History of NOW as It Happened. in Evolution of Cenozoic Land Mammal Faunas and Ecosystems. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology, vol. Part F1250, Springer, pp. 7-32. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17491-9_2