Abstract
Phylogenetic trees are a crucial backbone for a wide breadth of biological research spanning systematics, organismal biology, ecology, and medicine. In 2015, the Open Tree of Life project published a first draft of a comprehensive tree of life, summarizing digitally available taxonomic and phylogenetic knowledge. This paper reviews, investigates, and addresses the following questions as a follow-up to that paper, from the perspective of researchers involved in building this summary of the tree of life: Is there a tree of life and should we reconstruct it? Is available data sufficient to reconstruct the tree of life? Do we have access to phylogenetic inferences in usable form? Can we combine different phylogenetic estimates across the tree of life? And finally, what is the future of understanding the tree of life?.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 1700114 |
Journal | BioEssays |
Volume | 39 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- data deposition
- evolution
- open science
- phylogeny
- tree of life
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology