The Arthropod Supertree of Life: An Online Interactive Resource for Testing Patterns in Arthropod Evolution and Biodiversity

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1. We will construct the largest ever supertrees of arthropods by synthesising 5,000+ peer-reviewed cladograms from the literature. The Researcher Co-I and Data Clerk will archive these in Newick format along with rich metadata in XML (character type, analysis type, branch support measures and complete bibliographic information) that will add significant value. A SynTax-funded prototype and proof of principle for crabs is already online.

2. We will develop and implement new supertree algorithms, including quartet joining, conservative, maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods. These will be incorporated into new versions of the open-source Supertree Toolkit (STK) alongside MRP variants, making it the most versatile supertree software available. We will also include tools to test for adequate overlap; a necessary prerequisite for efficient analyses. We will additionally incorporate 'taxonomic awareness' enabling trees to be produced at various hierarchical levels with no recoding of the source trees. We will also explore and program measures of supertree support, of congruence/conflict between data partitions, and of congruence between our trees and stratigraphic data. The arthropod case-study will be used for benchmarking.

3. All data and tools will be embedded online, and linked to analytical software written in Python and released under GNU GPL. A user-friendly GUI will enable anyone to produce supertrees easily but rigorously from any sub-sample of the data, and by multiple methods. Users will also be able to upload their own trees and metadata, enabling our resource to grow organically.

4. We will conduct several pilot studies for several focal clades (crabs, crayfish, bumblebees, dung beetles and butterflies). Specifically, we will collaborate with conservationists (Ben Collen and Richard Grenyer) to identify EDGE species, and to investigate the relationship between measures of phylogenetic spread and biogeographical distribution.

Academic Impact

This project stands as a proof of principle for managing, curating and maximising the impact of a much larger database of published trees than assembled hitherto, along with its associated metadata. The project entails the development and implementation of important new methods for supertree construction, with applications for evolutionary biology, ecology, behavioural science and conservation. It will create a lasting legacy for the wider academic community in the form of the revised Supertree Toolkit (STK) and its associated website. The latter will comprise data, software and in-built data processing capabilities, all of which will benefit the wider biological community in future projects.
All of the new quartet joining, conservative, Bayesian and likelihood algorithms within the updated Supertree Toolkit will be released under an open source license, enabling other theoreticians and programmers to build upon its functionality. The front-end of the Toolkit will be easy for any researcher to use, and we envisage a lasting legacy from its redeployment on other groups of organisms.

This project is keenly supported by researchers on all major arthropod clades, for whom our resources will offer a comprehensive synthesis of the state of published knowledge. It will also highlight where disparate sources of data concur, and where there is significant conflict necessitating further research. Collaborative links have already been established with: Jonathan Coddington, Smithsonian (Arachnida); Jason Dunlop, Museum für Naturkunde (Chelicerata); Bill Shear, Hampden-Sydney College VA (Chilopoda); Adam Slipinski, CSIRO (Coleoptera); Geoff Boxshall, NHM (Copepoda and all Crustacea); Keith Crandall, Brigham Young (Decapoda); Greg Edgecombe, NHM (Diplopoda); Rudolf Meier, University of Singapore (Diptera); Richard Brusca (Isopoda); Stefan Richter, University of Rostock (Malacostraca); John Trueman (Odonata); Darren Mann, Oxford (Scarabaeida).
This project will generate robust supertrees for use in secondary analyses by conservationists, ecologists, ethologists and evolutionary biologists. More importantly, these workers will be able to produce their own trees using any desired data filtering and processing criteria, as well as using powerful new supertree methods. We have established links with Richard Grenyer (Geography, Oxford) and Ben Collen (Head of Indicators and Assessment Unit, ZSL) in order to design our resources with this objective in view.

Economic and Societal Impact

Conservative estimates of the economic costs of biodiversity loss are around £40 billion per annum, although these figures are not currently included in estimates of GDP. An equivalent loss of 7% of GDP is predicted by 2050 if current rates continue. Approaches to conservation that simply count species are crude; the additional information imparted by large phylogenies allows evolutionary distinctiveness to be factored into policy-making decisions. This project will hugely simplify the synthesis of existing phylogenetic information for all groups by providing new methods and tools. It will specifically and immediately enhance our understanding of arthropod biodiversity; a clade containing 80% of all animal species. If our resource helps to slow the decline by just one thousandth of one percent over the next ten years (a modest claim), it's value might conservatively be placed at £4 million.
Public interest in biodiversity loss is enormous. The scale of this project, and the sheer size and inclusiveness of the trees that we will generate will make our work of great public interest. By adding an accessible 'public front end' to our website (linked to 'ARKive' images and species notes), we will improve public understanding of phylogeny and evolution, and raise awareness of the importance of, and applications for, systematics in general. This is of vital importance at a time when teaching of the discipline is declining.