Tree of Life App is an interactive and illustrated family-level phylogeny of living beings, composed of a synthesis of data from thousands of published studies from the primary literature. Main groups of organisms –from bacteria to vertebrates- are displayed in the initial tree as collapsed branches that can be opened to view family level relationships. Over 7000 families are included in the current version.
The interactivity and contents of Tree of Life App include the following features:
-Zooming in or out to explore a vast tree with thousands of tips (taxonomic families)
-Tapping on icons to see taxon associated metadata (taxon name, common names), and quick links to Wikipedia (internet connection is required for this feature)
-Collapsing clades into single branches to summarize or hide undesired details
-Visualizing subtrees of special interest
-A search feature enabling users to find specific organisms either by common or scientific names (up to family-level)
-A time scale to visually infer divergence dates among lineages and extinction dates of fossil families
-A full list of references supporting the phylogenetic arrangements shown in the tree
Tree of Life App is constantly being updated to include recent findings, guaranteeing to illustrate the most up-to date state of the art about evolutionary relationships among organisms.
