Tip of the Week: PhyloWidget
Got phylogeny? So, you’ve created a phylogeny using some software and would like to draw the tree from the Newick formatted file* you exported. Of course there is no shortage of tree drawing programs out there (or phylogeny generating ones either). We found another one recently; a web-based, API-usable, opensource tree drawing tool that is quite intuitive and functional. It’s called PhyloWidget. The paper describing PhyloWidget is here and you can find some very nicely done step-by-step instructions here. I’ve done a quick 4 minute tutorial here to give you a quick overview. If it looks like something you could use, you might want to delve into it right away, or check out their ‘walk through.’ Happy climbing.
*Here’s the file I use in the tip: ((raccoon:19.19959,bear:6.80041):0.84600,((sea_lion:11.99700, seal:12.00300):7.52973,((monkey:100.85930,cat:47.14069):20.59201, weasel:18.87953):2.09460):3.87382,dog:25.46154);
Cool, PhyloWidget looks like a much more powerful tool for drawing trees than the one I usually use.
[...] around taxonomy and biodiversity around the world. I found out about them from Trey’s recent Tip on the PhyloWidget tool–one of the links you can use after you build a phylogeny is to uBio. This short movie [...]