MatrixConverter: Facilitating construction of phenomic character matrices

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary biology
• Bioinformatics
• Computational biology

Background:

• Numerous software packages exist for molecular data phylogenetic analysis.
• Tools for transforming phenomic data into phylogenetic matrices are scarce.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce MatrixConverter, a software to facilitate phenomic data transformation.
• Enable the use of phenomic data in evolutionary and ecological inference programs.

Main Methods:

• MatrixConverter is an open-source program written in Java.
• It features a user-friendly interface for scoring phenomic characters.
• Platform-independent binary executable is available with sample data and a user's manual.

Main Results:

• MatrixConverter successfully transforms raw phenomic data into discrete character matrices.
• Demonstrated performance on a phenomic data set from cycads.
• The software is readily available for use.

Conclusions:

• MatrixConverter addresses the need for specialized software in phenomic data analysis.
• Facilitates evolutionary and ecological inference from new phenomic datasets.
• Supports the growing field of phenomics by enabling data usability.