PhylotasticiEvoBio

instructions

from the email and web site:

Accepted talks will be 15 minutes in length and will be presented during the full talk session of the conference. Because the number of program slots for full talks is limited, some talks may be moved to the Lightning Talk session (5 minutes in length).

Submitted talks should be in the area of informatics aimed at advancing research in phylogenetics, evolution, and biodiversity, including new tools, cyberinfrastructure development, large-scale data analysis, and visualization.

Submissions should be 1 page long at most and include a title, a list of contributors, and an abstract. The abstract should provide an overview of the talk's subject, and give enough detail to allow reviewers to decide whether the submission merits a full talk, or whether it should be moved to a Lightning Talk session. If the subject of the talk is a specific software component for use by the research community, the abstract must state the license and give the URL where the source code is available so reviewers can verify that the open-source requirement(*) is met.

The revised deadline for submission is April 9, 2012. We intend to notify authors of accepted talks before early registration for iEvoBio (and Evolution) ends. Further instructions for submission are at the following URL:

http://ievobio.org/ocs2/index.php/ievobio/2012/schedConf/cfp

The abstract should be uploaded as a file in Portable Document Format (PDF, strongly preferred) or plain text format. The uploaded document should include title, authors, author affiliations, and references as applicable.

title

Making the Tree of Life Phylotastic!

contributors

(add your name and affiliation here in alphabetical order)

• Karen Cranston (karen.cranston@nescent.org, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, 2024 W. Main St, A200, Durham, NC, 27705)
• Luke J. Harmon (lukeh@uidaho.edu, University of Idaho, Department of Biological Sciences, Campus Box 3051, Moscow, ID 83844)
• Hilmar Lapp (hlapp@nescent.org, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, 2024 W. Main St, A200, Durham, NC, 27705)
• Enrico Pontelli (epontell@cs.nmsu.edu, New Mexico State University, Department of Computer Science, Box 30001, MSC CS, Las Cruces, NM 88003)
• Brian Sidlauskas (brian.sidlauskas@oregonstate.edu, Oregon State University, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, 104 Nash Hall, Corvallis, OR, 97331)
• Arlin Stoltzfus (arlin@umd.edu; NIST and IBBR, 9600 Gudelsky Drive, Rockville, MD 20850)
• Rutger Vos (NCB Naturalis)
• Mark W. Westneat (mwestneat@fieldmuseum.org, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL)

abstract

Phylogenies provide a central conceptual framework for comparative analysis in evolution and ecology, but only rarely do researchers reuse and share them. In fact, the vast majority of published phylogenies are unavailable in a computable format (e.g., because they are published simply as images), and few tools exist to facilitate reuse of phylogenies by the broader community. What new biological insights would result if any researcher or educator could obtain a current phylogeny linking any given set of taxa?

The Phylotastic project aims to develop an open architecture providing this functionality. In so doing, it addresses a community need evidenced by the widespread use of the Phylomatic software for comparative plant ecology. Phylomatic is an installable package for pruning and grafting an angiosperm megatree. In contrast to Phylomatic, the Phylotastic project will provide access to all available megatrees, and the operations of pruning, grafting, name-reconciliation, and so on, that are necessary to leverage these megatrees will be implemented as a set of web services. As a whole, this system will make the Tree of Life accessible to all researchers, both programmatically or through web-interfaces. Developing this “back-end” functionality is the main challenge of the Phylotastic project. The project also aims to create a few "front-end" tools that create mash-ups and leverage existing visualization tools in order to show the potential of such a system, and also to inspire others to add to the open framework as which Phylotastic is designed.

Phylotastic is being organized by NESCent's HIP (Hackathons, Interoperability, Phylogenetics) Working Group in the format of a hackathon. The group aims to use hackathons to augment an emerging network of interoperable informatics resources in evolutionary science. Phylotastic is the first of 3 hackathons planned by HIP. Unlike previous NESCent hackathons, which used Open Space principles to facilitate multiple participant-initiated projects around a shared theme, the Phylotastic hackathon is designed so that all participants would be working towards a coordinated solution to a single problem. The 25 participants, recruited by the HIP leadership team through an open call for participation, will build Phylotastic during the week of June 4 to 8, 2012, at NESCent, and in part at a satellite hackathon at the University of Idaho.

This talk will describe not only the products but also the process of the Phylotastic project, as we believe that both are important. Key elements of the process include how the community need for Phylotastic was identified, how the organizers recruited participants, and how the participants collaborated before and during the event. The key products to be described will be examples of use-cases and visualizations illustrating how research scientists can use the project's results to leverage available megatrees in their research pursuits.