lightning talk for iEvoBio2013, June 25, 2013, delivered by Arlin Stoltzfus on behalf of HIP and the hackathon participants. Phylotastic is a distributed delivery system for expert knowledge of species phylogeny (the tree of life).

1. Getting more
ArlinStoltzfus
Research Biologist, National Institute of Standards and Technology
A project of the NESCent HIP (hackathons,
interoperability, phyogenies) working group

2. THE PROBLEM
Tree-of-Life
knowledge
• Mostly locked in pics
• < 5% of trees archived
• Hard to discover &access
Researchers, educators,
& resource-providers
who could use a good
species tree
?

3. What big-tree methods generate
What users need
APG framework tree Fig. 5 from Butler & King, 2004

4. ~ 5% TO 15% NON-STANDARD NAMES
Figure from Riek, 2011 Phylotastic tree after name corrections
Ovisammon
Oreamnusamerican
us
Felis
catus
Ovisaries
Oreamnos
americanus
Felis
silvestris

5. Species1
Species2
Species3
condition1
condition2
Phylotastic
Species3
Species1
Species2
Sources & methods

6. Upstream
steps
Rectify
names
Discover
tree
Prune &
Graft
Add branch
lengths
Integrate
other data
Downstream
analysis

7. DataOperations
User Controller
Rectify Names
(TNRS) NameBanks
Find matching trees
Source trees
Graft missing taxa
Prune extra taxa
Translate formats
Get branch lengths
Calibrations
Species1
Species2
Species3
condition
1
condition
2
Phylotasti
c

9. Phylotasti
c
 Goal: access to expert ToL knowledge that is
 convenient – much easier than DIY tree
 computable – logically encoded trees (not pics)
 credible – useable in a scientific paper

10. HIP HACKATHONS
HIP Leadership Team
Participants

11. Phylotastic.org demos  pruner

12. ANNOTATING SOURCE TREES using a formal ontology
See Hilmar Lapp’s lightning talk

13. TNRS
Oreamnosamericanu
s
Oreamnusamericanus:
No exact match

14. DATELIFE.ORG
The other kind of Dating with Fossils
Ask Brian O’Meara, Tracy Heath, or Klaus Schliep
-- scales trees by reference to prior calibrations
Dating with Fossils

15. Julie Allen (software bazaar)

16. Reconciled Tree (red=duplication,
green=speciation)

18. PHYLOTASTIC.ORG
Questions? Ask Arlin or email to
arlin@umd.edu

19. Work in progress

20. THANKS!
 www.phylotastic.org
HIP Leadership Team
Participants