Comparative Analyses of Interactive Trees

contents

• General Principles
• Index to Analyses:
  • BIOT - Biodiversity Information Organized using Taxonomy
  • Tree of Life website
  • TaxonTree
  • Static Trees from "Assembling the Tree of Life" - static, but important!

General Principles

These general principles for an interactive tree of life application emerge as a result of comparative analyses of various current approaches, particularly while keeping the target audiences in mind.

• Common names should be shown and thoroughly supported.
• Give an automatic preview of the contents of the next level down & enough information to help the viewer decide which branch to follow
• Provide Search capabilities for locating specific & general targets on the tree.
• Support spelling correction for search terms.
• Provide an overview of tree's structure & depth, and an indication of where the view is currently located.

Index to Analyses

BIOT - Biodiversity Information Organized using Taxonomy

click to enlarge or reduce screenshot

Screenshot from the BIOT project - Biodiversity Information Organization using Taxonomy.

 

Tree of Life website

Screenshot from the Tree of Life project website.

 

TaxonTree

click to enlarge or reduce screenshot

The TaxonTree tree display of the animals, starting close to the root of the tree, and showing the characters that define each branch.

 

Static Trees from "Assembling the Tree of Life" - static, but important!

 

click to enlarge or reduce screenshot

This diagram of the major branches of the tree of life, from "Assembling the Tree of Life" Oxford University Press, 2004.