PepoWiki

PEPO: Plant Ecology on Phylogenies Online

An 'open-data' community collaboration to explore the ecological character of taxa of plants above the species level

Goals

• To collect observations and opinions on the EcologicalCharacter of plants, arranged into phylogenetic groups,
• To analyze these contributions for phylogenetic conservatism of niche, and possibly to attempt reconstruction of ancestral ecological character,
• Perhaps to prove ArthurCronquist? wrong! There are meaningful ecological characters of higher taxa,
• To publish the results, under the single author PEPO (see PublicationPlan).

An experiment in community science!

Our intention (us being TheCommittee), is to conduct this project from start to finish as an open-data exercise. Everyone who participates gets credit. The community is responsible for data quality.

Project Components

The Phylogenetic TreePages

Current format explained

Since we are using a Wiki, we need to fit the tree within a wiki text-based framework. CamWebb has developed some tools to take a Newick tree and convert it into a staggered format that retains the nested parentheses of a Newick tree. This is the form he edits for the megatree behind PhyloMatic?, and it works for wiki (just!). Later, we may display the trees as more standard ASCII trees (with -+ symbols. Eventually we may migrate to a more optimized web-based application, but we can go a long way from here. See an example: FagalesTree.

Editting trees

Currently, TheCommittee is leaving the TreePages unlocked, in the wiki spirit, so you could edit the phylogeny if you want, but if you do, please be very careful to maintain structure, and annotate your changes, with reasons, in a footer section.

The NodePages?

Coming.

The SiteLists?

Analysis

Using PhyloCom on plant site lists

The paper: an experimental exercise in community writing!

See ThePapers, and PublicationPlan

Acknowledgments

See AcknowledgmentsPage

What is wiki (or wikiwiki), and how do I edit these pages?

See AwkiAwki.