Zoom in Darwinism
The OneZoom Tree of Life illustration
British naturalist Charles Darwin revolutionised science with his theory of evolution by natural selection, which showed that all species on Earth are related and that they evolved from a common ancestor.
Darwin, whose 200th birth anniversary was celebrated in 2009, was the first scientist to visualise and draw a Tree of Life to show the connections between the species in his book, On the Origin of Species, published 153 years ago to the month.
The discovery of genetics and the universality of the genetic code confirmed a common ancestry for all life on Earth, but created a big puzzle for scientists on how to depict some 1.8 million named species on a single tree of life and also show their connections to each other on the trees.
“Even relatively simple trees have been extremely challenging to visualise without huge sheets of paper or multiple computer screens,” says Dr James Rosindell, from Imperial College London, who along with Dr Luke Harmon, from the University of Idaho, conceptualised and programmed the Tree of Life online on interactive website, www.onezoom.org.
The traditional tree of life is generally drawn starting with a thick trunk that represents the first life on earth. The trunk then splits into large boughs for different categories of life such as plants and animals, then ever smaller branches for groups such as insects, fish, birds and mammals.
Dr Rosindell in collaboration with Dr Harmon created OneZoom, which was partly inspired by the zooming technology of mapping software like Google Maps, which starts with a broad view of life on Earth, then zooms in on any point to explore incrementally smaller categories of life.
The two scientists have started with 5,020 species of wild mammals and each category of mammals show which species are under the most threat from extinction, give common names and scientific names and give links to Wikipedia for more information.
“OneZoom gives you a natural way to explore large amounts of complex information like the tree of life,” explains Dr Rosindell. “It’s intuitive because it’s similar to the way we explore the real world; by moving towards interesting objects to see them in more detail.”
The scientists hope to include domesticated animals in the mammalian tree too and next will include the tree of amphibian life with over 5,000 species to this tree. The two scientists will produce the first online, comprehensive first-draft tree of all 1.8 million named species by 2014 using the data gathered by the Open Tree of Life Project.
“After decades of study, scientists are probably only a year away from having a first draft of the complete tree of life. It would be a great shame if having built it we had no way to visualise it,” Dr Rosindell adds.
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