Experimental tool is supporting collaborative research on phylogenetics by enabling data access, review, comparison and downloads that reveal evolutionary relationships between species
GBIF has introduced a new Phylogenetic Explorer on the Legume Data Portal, a project of the Legume Phylogenomic Working Group. The new Phylogenetic Explorer, a visualisation tool that organises species occurrence data in GBIF according to the most recent phylogenetic evidence based on evolutionary relationships, was recently showcased using legume occurrence data at the 8th International Legume Conference held in Brazil. The viewer’s novelty lies in its ability to map occurrence records at clade level, allowing users to compare distribution data of different clades at one glance. All taxa in the Phylogenetic Explorer are matched to the GBIF taxonomic backbone.
Two key members who are part of the Legume Phylogeny Group’s Taxonomy Working Group, Marianne le Roux (South African National Biodiversity Institute) and Anne Bruneau (University of Montreal and Canadensys), have been responsible for coordinating a global community endorsed consensus checklist. The checklist is curated by 96 contributors (26 countries). This checklist forms the authoritative list of legume names in the GBIF taxonomic backbone that is also used in the Phylogenetic Explorer. A recent paper illustrates and provides metrics to quantify the importance of taxonomy and checklist curation and its effect on related biodiversity records (e.g. distribution maps in GBIF) that could be used to justify the impact of this type of work to funders and employers.
See DOI: 10.1038/s41597-022-01812-6, to the associated paper.