Analysis scripts for: Survivorship Bias Explains Age-Dependent Extinction in Fossil Genera

Description

MATLAB code accompanying: M. Tikhonov, K. Sneppen, S. Bornholdt, and S. Maslov. Survivorship Bias Explains Age-Dependent Extinction in Fossil Genera. Preprint (2026). The code was developed by M. Tikhonov, with contributions by S. Maslov. The repository contains: - Raw fossil genus data. - MATLAB analysis and simulation code. - Figure-generation scripts reproducing all figures in the accompanying manuscript. - Optional precomputed simulation outputs used to accelerate figure generation. To reproduce all manuscript figures, run RUN_ME.m in MATLAB from the repository root. The precomputed simulation outputs are included solely to reduce runtime. To rerun any analysis or simulation from scratch, simply remove or rename the corresponding cached data file; it will be regenerated automatically. Details of the model, statistical methods, and biological interpretation are provided in the accompanying manuscript. Repository organization - RUN_ME.m — main entry point reproducing the manuscript analyses and figures. - data/ — analysis-ready input data derived from the Compendium of Fossil Marine Animal Genera by J. J. Sepkoski. - core_code/ — data loading, simulations, model fitting, and statistical analyses. - plotting_code/ — manuscript and supplementary figure generation. - cache/ — the pre-computed intermediate files for faster figure generation. If you use this code, please cite: M. Tikhonov, K. Sneppen, S. Bornholdt, and S. Maslov. Survivorship Bias Explains Age-Dependent Extinction in Fossil Genera. Preprint (2026).

Steps to reproduce

Run the script: RUN_ME.m

Institutions

• Washington University in St. Louis

  Missouri, St Louis
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  Illinois, Urbana

Categories

Funders

• National Institute of General Medical Sciences

  National Institutes of Health

  Maryland, Bethesda

  Grant ID: R35GM160222

Licence