S14 - Linking biodiversity data through phylogenetic knowledge

Unsolicited contributions considered? Yes

Abstract

As T. Dobzhansky famously stated, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. Phylogenies provide a framework for investigating complex biodiversity patterns in an evolutionary context. Advances in sequencing technology and analytical capacity are accelerating the pace of phylogenetic reconstructions, including at a scale that would allow linking data across the entire Tree of Life. Concomitantly these advances have also resulted in a profusion of alternative evolutionary hypotheses and turnover of long established ideas. Phylogenetic integration of biodiversity data therefore presents both an opportunity and a challenge. How can we utilize phylogenies to link together biodiversity data on the basis of what we know about relevant evolutionary history, while handling ongoing change and uncertainty in our estimates? This symposium will illuminate advantages offered by integrating phylogenetic knowledge with biodiversity data, examine some of the challenges of doing so, and highlight approaches with the potential to address these challenges. Historically, the reconstruction of phylogenies and the curation of biodiversity data have been undertaken as separate activities. However, recent bioinformatics initiatives at the intersection of evolutionary, ecological, and biodiversity informatics, such as the Open Tree of Life, the Phenoscape Knowledgebase, GBIF, and the Encyclopedia of Life’s TraitBank are now making it possible to link and integrate phylogenetic knowledge and biodiversity data at the scale of the entire tree of life. Nonetheless, the ecosystem of synthesis and integration methods and standards is far from mature, in particular with respect to coping with evolving phylogenetic hypotheses and phylogenetic uncertainty. For example, although there is much past and current work on recording, expressing and tracing taxon concepts and taxonomic names, corresponding work for tracking clades in phylogenies is at best in its infancy. At present, biodiversity databases are disconnected from phylogenies, and therefore querying data using phylogenetic statements is very difficult and time consuming. While data standards (e.g., Darwin Core; Audubon Core) are widely used for biodiversity data, conventions for interoperability with phylogenetic and comparative data standards are generally lacking, as are community initiatives for their shared development. Finally, whether adding biodiversity data layers onto phylogenies requires reconciling explicit or imposed assumptions of trait homology when transforming primary biodiversity data to a comparative format has, received little exploration. By bringing together researchers from across domains this symposium will serve to map a path forwards to overcome these challenges and fully exploit the opportunities provided by linking together phylogenetic knowledge and biodiversity data.