Innovative tools for incorporating continuous data from fossils in phylogenetic tree-building: leveraging the MorphoBank platform

Suny At Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

The Web application/database MorphoBank is a modern tool giving scientists a digital workspace to collaborate on matrices in teams worldwide - and in real time. In MorphoBank scientists can add annotated digital images to matrices to support observations of phenotypes. All data are permanently archived in a highly reusable format at no cost to the investigator. Powerful new algorithms have emerged in the last decade that allow investigators to use continuous or morphometric data directly in phylogenetic tree-building. This project will develop new web-based tools to allow investigators to collect and display continuous data in phylogenetic matrices in Morphobank. In this context users can integrate both continuous and discrete variables, can illustrate and label this information and can share the data with the scientific community and the public following publication. Continuous and morphometric data (e.g., relative length of jaw to skull, absolute body size) are commonly collected scientific practice and recognized to be phylogenetically informative. However, integrating continuous with discrete data in online matrices with images is not yet possible. By introducing new tools to organize and graph continuous data through the stable online platform, MorphoBank, paleontologists can better examine how coding practices affect tree-building and can present more robust descriptions of how continuous data from fossils inform the Tree of Life.