Data sharing, OpenTree and GoLife
NSF has released GoLife, the new solicitation that replaces both AToL and AVAToL. From the GoLife text:
The goals of the Genealogy of Life (GoLife) program are to resolve the phylogenetic history of life and to integrate this genealogical architecture with underlying organismal data.
Data completeness, open data and data integration are key components of these proposals – inferring well-sampled trees that are linked with other types of data (molecular, morphological, ecological, spatial, etc) and made easily available to scientific and non-scientific users. The solicitation requires that trees published by GoLife projects are published in a way that allows them to be understood and re-used by Open Tree of Life and other projects:
Integration and standardization of data consistent with three AVAToL projects: Open Tree of Life (www.opentreeoflife.org), ARBOR (www.arborworkflows.com), and Next Generation Phenomics (www.avatol.org/ngp) is required. Other data should be made available through broadly accessible community efforts (i.e., specimen data through iDigBio, occurrence data through BISON, etc).
What does it mean to publish data consistent with Open Tree of Life? We have a short page on data sharing with OpenTree, and a publication in PLOS Currents Tree of Life with best practices for sharing phylogenetic data. Our phylogeny curation application allows you to upload and annotate phylogenies consistent with OpenTree synthesis, and you can quickly import trees from TreeBASE.
If you have questions about a GoLife proposal (or any other data sharing / integration issue), feel free to ask on our mailing list or contact Karen Cranston directly.
ASSEMBLING, VISUALIZING, AND ANALYZING THE EVOLUTIONARY TREE OF LIFE 