The Open Tree of Life is an online phylogenetictree of life – a collaborative effort, funded by the National Science Foundation.[2][3] The first draft, including 2.3 million species, was released in September 2015.[4] The Interactive graph allows the user to zoom in to taxonomic classifications, phylogenetic trees, and information about a node. Clicking on a species will return its source and reference taxonomy.
The tree of life at the node Eukaryota
Approach
The project uses a supertree approach to generate a single phylogenetic tree (served at tree.opentreeoflife.org[5]) from a comprehensive taxonomy and a curated set of published phylogenetic estimates.
The taxonomy is a combination of several large classifications produced by other projects; it is created using a software tool called "smasher".[6] The resulting taxonomy is called an Open Tree Taxonomy (OTT) and can be browsed on-line.[7]
History
The project was started in June 2012 with a three-year NSF award to researchers at ten universities. In 2015, a two-year supplemental award was made to researchers at three institutions.
