Thomas A. Neubauer is a researcher in paleobiology focusing on a variety of different subjects. He has published over 100 papers on various topics, ranging from taxonomy, systematics, and nomenclature to studies on biodiversity, biogeography, and evolution. His primary taxonomic focus is on fossil freshwater and terrestrial gastropods. In 2014 he got involved in WoRMS as editor of the Thematic Species Database "FreshGEN" (https://www.marinespecies.org/freshgen/). Since then, he has contributed to expanding WoRMS (and the portal MolluscaBase) towards the entire fossil record of non-marine gastropods and bivalves. Over the past years, databasing efforts extended towards marine fossil mollusks as well. As a paleobiologist Thomas is particularly interested in using these data to reconstruct diversity, distribution, and evolution of mollusks through space and time and eventually make more accurate predictions for future biodiversity change. WoRMS provides an ideal platform for this effort. The possibility to document and curate data on taxonomy, distribution, stratigraphy, and literature and to make them freely accessible to a wider public is key to promoting biodiversity research on a large scale. Moreover, witnessing the extensive utilization and consultation of WoRMS by researchers, consortia, and data portals all around the world is a great motivation to continue this endeavor and contribute to long-lasting species information backbone of Earth's biota. | |