A comprehensive tree of life that accounts for roughly 2.3 million named species from microbes to animals has been released. The ambitious project results from the collaboration between eleven institutions that traced the relationship between living things back 3.5 billion years ago to when life first appeared on Earth.
Scientists aren’t keeping this groundbreaking information all to themselves. Rather, they have released it online, free for anyone to use, download, or even edit. Think of it like the “Wikipedia” for evolutionary trees.
“This is the first real attempt to connect the dots and put it all together,” said principal investigator Karen Cranston of Duke University.
A Comprehensive Tree of Life: Building from What We Already Know
To embark on this daunting undertaking, scientists analyzed thousands of smaller “trees of life” that had already been published online. Smaller chunks of data were amassed, thus becoming the roots, twigs, and branches of the “supertree” that accounts for all of the species. In fact, nearly 500 smaller trees comprise the bases for the initial draft.
The Importance of An Open Tree of Life
Scientists encountered obstacles due to the sheer volume and complexity of the collected data. Additionally, only a small percentage of resources relating to the tree of life were available digitally.
“There’s a pretty big gap between the sum of what scientists know about how living things are related, and what’s actually available digitally,” Cranston said. This has resulted in parts of the initial tree to be patchy and conflicting with expert opinion at times.
Another big challenge scientists faced was explaining the variations of species names used in the different resources.
Co-author Douglas Soltis of the University of Florida stated, “As important as showing what we do know about relationships, this first tree of life is also important in revealing what we don’t know.” Software is in development that will allow researchers to add new data to the tree for the millions of species that have not been accounted for yet.”
Data sharing technology has been crucial for recent scientific breakthroughs and the speed in which they happen. As new discoveries and advancements in one study are made, they become the building blocks and missing links for another.
“The Open Tree of Life is an important starting point that other investigators can now refine and improve for decades to come,” Soltis said. To view the Open Tree of Life, visit tree.opentreeoflife.org
