Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Is there a public database of all known species and their evolutionary relationships?

Is there a database or xml tree somewhere that I can access that will show me all or most of the known animal species and where they are on the evolutionary tree?Is there a public database of all known species and their evolutionary relationships?
Not exactly what you're looking for, but you might want to check out the Tree of Life Project (see links in my sources). It's not a workable database or XML tree, but it does aim to catalogue all species and their evolutionary relationships.Is there a public database of all known species and their evolutionary relationships?
';We do not know, to within 10% or so, how many distinct eukaryotic species have been named and recorded (the species concept arguably needs to be interpreted differently for prokaryotes). This derives partly from the lack of synoptic and coordinated catalogs for many invertebrate taxa and partly from resulting unresolved synonymies: the same species separately identified and named on two or more occasions. The total number of known eukaryotic species is currently estimated as ~1.8 to 1.9 million, but with all the synonymies removed it may be 1.6 million or fewer. Bird and mammal species are known very well and most other vertebrates reasonably well. Somewhere around 90% of plant species are probably known. But our knowledge of invertebrate species (insects, helminths, and others) is woefully inadequate. So credible estimates of the true eukaryotic species total run around 5 to 10 million, but suggestions as low as 3 million or as high as 100 million can


be defended.';


Species Uncertainties by Robert M. May and Paul H. Harvey


Science 6 February 2009:Vol. 323. no. 5915, p. 687





There have been several attempts and start-ups (see the above answer) but there is no easily accessible record - there's not enough people working in this field and there's not enough money or interest to do more. Above the species level, there are more complete phylogenies but the taxonomic resolution is very broad:


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FeaU01D-3wI/SS鈥?/a>


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FeaU01D-3wI/SS鈥?/a>
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