Thanks to a large team of scientists from more than 11 university institutions involved, the first draft of the “Tree of Life” project has just seen the light with a review of 2.3 million species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes in a genetic path through 3.5 billion years of history . This impressive and unique tree of life has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
It is the “Open Book of Life” (opentreeoflife.org) that encompasses, in a single and impressive genetic map, the evolution from single-celled microorganisms, extinct species to Homo sapiens. “ This is the first real and serious attempt to connect all the dots into one whole. Think of it as version 1.0. ”Explains study leader Karen Cranston.
Constructed as a Wikipedia of evolution, the document can be freely reviewed / downloaded or edited in a similar way, through branches or sectors of evolution with the intention of relating millions of species through a common past through biological succession between different species.
“ There is a very big difference between the sum of what scientists know about how living things are related, and what is actually available digitally. E s vital data sharing if we want to improve the tree , “said Cranston.
To achieve this scientific milestone, the researchers joined hundreds of fragments from a gigantic range of previous studies from the last decades – which reproduced the tree of life of a specific branch – and made the composition of a giant mosaic .
“ Twenty-five years ago, people said that this goal of creating a huge evolutionary tree was impossible . The Tree of Life A is an important starting point for other researchers to refine and improve it in the coming decades ”, clarifies Douglas Soltis, co-author of the study.
