The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL) is an

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

project providing information about the

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

and

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. This collaborative

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

ed project began in 1995, and is written by

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

s from around the world. The site has not been updated since 2011, however the pages are still accessible. The pages are linked hierarchically, in the form of the branching

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

ary tree of life, organized cladistically. Each page contains information about one particular group of organisms and is organized according to a branched tree-like form, thus showing hypothetical relationships between different groups of organisms. In 2009 the project ran into funding problems from the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

. Pages and Treehouses submitted took a considerably longer time to be approved as they were being reviewed by a small group of volunteers, and apparently, around 2011, all activities ended.

History

The idea of this project started in the late 1980s. David Maddison was working on a computer program MacClade during his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

research. This is an application that gives insight into species' phylogenetic trees. He wanted to extend this program with a feature that allowed the user to browse through phylogenetic trees and zoom into other lower or higher taxa. Hence, this association was not unique in a stand-alone application. The researchers came up with the idea to export the application into the World Wide Web and this was realized in 1995. From 1996 to 2011, over 300 biologists from around the globe added taxa web pages into the phylogeny browser.

Quality

To ensure the quality of ToL project, the board made use of

peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

. The pages that were reviewed were sent to two or three researchers that specialized in the particular subject. It is possible to visit the personal page of the author. If this is not accessible then the institution is always at the footnote. The entire tree structure that contained 35,960 species until the website's demise, is available for download as a csv dataset.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.tolweb.org/ Biology websites Phylogenetics Tree of life (biology)

History

Quality

See also

References

External links