Darwintree: A Molecular Data Analysis and Application Environment for Phylogenetic Study

DarwinTree (http://www.darwintree.cn) provides an integrated bioinformatics platform that supports all phases of the analytical pathway for phylogenetic study from data collections, phylogenetic tree constructions, visualization of the tree of life, and web-based rendering to specific application services & data mining. First, it is a repository for sequence records that form the basic data unit of all phylogenetic studies. Second, it is a workbench that aids the management, quality assurance, and analysis of phylogenetic data. Third, it provides a community of phylogenetic application services with tree reconstruction and related data mining. This paper provides a brief introduction to the key elements of DarwinTree, discusses their functional capabilities, details the database features, phylogeny pipeline, data mining tools, and specific application services available to support it, and concludes with future prospects.