TY - JOUR T1 - Synthesis of phylogeny and taxonomy into a comprehensive tree of life JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/012260 SP - 012260 AU - Cody Hinchliff AU - Stephen A Smith AU - James F Allman AU - J Gordon Burleigh AU - Ruchi Chaudhary AU - Lyndon M Cognill AU - Keith A Crandall AU - Jiabin Deng AU - Bryan T Drew AU - Romina Gazis AU - Karl Gude AU - David S Hibbett AU - Laura A Katz AU - H Dail Laughinghouse IV AU - Emily Jane McTavish AU - Peter E. Midford AU - Christopher L Owen AU - Richard Ree AU - Jonathan A Rees AU - Doug E Soltis AU - Tiffani Williams AU - Karen Ann Cranston Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/07/29/012260.abstract N2 - Reconstructing the phylogenetic relationships that unite all lineages (the tree of life) is a grand challenge. The paucity of homologous character data across disparately related lineages currently renders direct phylogenetic inference untenable. To reconstruct a comprehensive tree of life we therefore synthesized published phylogenies, together with taxonomic classifications for taxa never incorporated into a phylogeny. We present a draft tree containing 2.3 million tips -- the Open Tree of Life. Realization of this tree required the assembly of two additional community resources: 1) a novel comprehensive global reference taxonomy; and 2) a database of published phylogenetic trees mapped to this taxonomy. Our open source framework facilitates community comment and contribution, enabling the tree to be continuously updated when new phylogenetic and taxonomic data become digitally available. While data coverage and phylogenetic conflict across the Open Tree of Life illuminate gaps in both the underlying data available for phylogenetic reconstruction and the publication of trees as digital objects, the tree provides a compelling starting point for community contribution. This comprehensive tree will fuel fundamental research on the nature of biological diversity, ultimately providing up-to-date phylogenies for downstream applications in comparative biology, ecology, conservation biology, climate change, agriculture, and genomics. ER -