Dr. Yan Wong (University of Oxford) and Dr. James Rosindell (Imperial College of London) have created the most comprehensive tree of life to date. Their tree, a culmination of over 10 years of research (image above, from OneZoom.org), is an exquisite interactive tool that can be used to decipher genetic connections between more than 2 million species. Each tiny leaf represents a single species and clicking on the leaf will bring up more information about the species and any known genetic information.
People interested in sponsoring the project can also “adopt” a species and add a message to their leaf. Color coding helps visualize the vulnerability of each species with blue indicating ‘not threatened’, red ‘threatened with extinction’, black ‘extinct’, and grey indicating a lack of information.
Check it out!
Sources
Y Wong, J Rosindell. Dynamic visualization of million-tip trees: The OneZoom project. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. In Press. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13766
Categories: Comparative Physiology, Most Popular
Tags: biology, genetic, OneZoom, phylogeny, species, Taxonomy, tree of life
Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle 