TimeTree: a public knowledge-base of divergence times among organisms.
Biologists and other scientists routinely need to know times of divergence between species and to construct phylogenies calibrated to time (timetrees). Published studies reporting time estimates from molecular data have been increasing rapidly, but the data have been largely inaccessible to the greater community of scientists because of their complexity. TimeTree brings these data together in a consistent format and uses a hierarchical structure, corresponding to the tree of life, to maximize their utility. Results are presented and summarized, allowing users to quickly determine the range and robustness of time estimates and the degree of consensus from the published literature.


BACKGROUND
TimeTree is available at http://www.timetree.net
Hedges
S Blair
SB
Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-5301, USA. sbh1@psu.edu
Dudley
Joel
J
Kumar
Sudhir
S
D005075:Biological Evolution; D003628:Database Management Systems; D016208:Databases, Factual; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D005828:Genetics, Population; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*; D051188:Knowledge Bases; D010802:Phylogeny; D014584:User-Computer Interface