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How and Why to Build a Unified Tree of Life
Author(s) -
McTavish Emily Jane,
Drew Bryan T.,
Redelings Ben,
Cranston Karen A.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.201700114
Subject(s) - tree of life (biology) , phylogenetic tree , tree (set theory) , tree rearrangement , phylogenetics , usable , ecology , biology , perspective (graphical) , systematics , evolutionary biology , computer science , data science , artificial intelligence , taxonomy (biology) , mathematics , world wide web , combinatorics , biochemistry , gene
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?