title: Next-generation phenomics for the Tree of Life.
abstract: The phenotype represents a critical interface between the genome and the environment in which organisms live and evolve. Phenotypic characters also are a rich source of biodiversity data for tree building, and they enable scientists to reconstruct the evolutionary history of organisms, including most fossil taxa, for which genetic data are unavailable. Therefore, phenotypic data are necessary for building a comprehensive Tree of Life. In contrast to recent advances in molecular sequencing, which has become faster and cheaper through recent technological advances, phenotypic data collection remains often prohibitively slow and expensive. The next-generation phenomics project is a collaborative, multidisciplinary effort to leverage advances in image analysis, crowdsourcing, and natural language processing to develop and implement novel approaches for discovering and scoring the phenome, the collection of phentotypic characters for a species. This research represents a new approach to data collection that has the potential to transform phylogenetics research and to enable rapid advances in constructing the Tree of Life. Our goal is to assemble large phenomic datasets built using new methods and to provide the public and scientific community with tools for phenomic data assembly that will enable rapid and automated study of phenotypes across the Tree of Life.
authors.affiliation: University of Florida.
authors.forename: J Gordon
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Burleigh
authors.forename: Kenzley
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Alphonse
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Alverson
authors.forename: Holly M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Bik
authors.forename: Carrine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Blank
authors.forename: Andrea L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Cirranello
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Marymegan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Daly
authors.forename: Thomas G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Dietterich
authors.forename: Gail
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gasparich
authors.forename: Jed
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Irvine
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Julius
authors.forename: Seth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kaufman
authors.forename: Edith
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Law
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Maureen A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: O'Leary
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Passarotti
authors.forename: Sonali
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ranade
authors.forename: Nancy B
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Simmons
authors.forename: Dennis W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Stevenson
authors.forename: Robert W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Thacker
authors.forename: Edward C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Theriot
authors.forename: Sinisa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Todorovic
authors.forename: Paúl M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Velazco
authors.forename: Ramona L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Walls
authors.forename: Joanna M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Wolfe
authors.forename: Mengjie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yu