Tag Archives: Reconstruction diagnostics

Reconstruction diagnostics for the Lake Żabińskie chironomid reconstruction

Posted on 26/04/2016 by richard telford

The evaluation of reconstruction diagonstics is an essential part of the process of generating palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from microfossil assemblages using transfer functions. If the reconstruction diagnostics are bad, we should be especially cautious about interpreting the reconstruction. The problems is … Continue reading →

Posted in Peer reviewed literature, transfer function | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Comparison of reconstruction diagnostics

Posted on 29/05/2014 by richard telford

Over the previous few posts, I have been demonstrating diagnostics for reconstructions based on individual fossil assemblages. I promised to compare the four diagnostics I have presented, but first I need to demonstrate a fifth which I forgot earlier. Reconstructions … Continue reading →

Posted in transfer function, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Beyond nearest analogue distance

Posted on 17/05/2014 by richard telford

In my previous post, I argued that the taxonomic distance from a fossil assemblage to the most similar assemblage in the modern calibration set is a useful diagnostic for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. Analogue distance is a useful metric, but it is not necessarily … Continue reading →

Posted in R, transfer function | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Analogue quality, reconstruction quality

Posted on 11/05/2014 by richard telford

It seems reasonable to assume that reconstructions based on fossil assemblages that are unlike any of the observations in the modern calibration set will be less reliable than fossil assemblages that have good analogues in the calibration set. I think analogue quality — defined as … Continue reading →

Posted in R, transfer function | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Transfer functions and species coverage

Posted on 04/05/2014 by richard telford

A transfer function will generate numerical reconstructions provided that at least one taxon is present in both the fossil and modern data sets. Obviously, the reconstruction will be more reliable if most of the fossil taxa are in the modern … Continue reading →

Posted in R, transfer function | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Transfer function and palaeoenvironmenal reconstruction diagnostics

Posted on 03/05/2014 by richard telford

Past environmental conditions can be reconstructed from fossil species assemblages with transfer functions. It is a simple matter to create a transfer function from modern species assemblages and associated environmental data and then use this to generate a reconstruction for … Continue reading →

Posted in transfer function | Tagged , | 6 Comments