Integrated species-phenon trees: visualizing infraspecific diversity within lineages

Area of Science:

• Paleontology
• Phylogenetics
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Molecular phylogenetics excels at visualizing infraspecific relationships in living species.
• Extending this detail into deep time is challenging for paleontological systematics, which uses morphotaxa.
• Integrating these perspectives can enhance understanding of evolutionary lineages.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel visualization tool for depicting infraspecific diversity within species through geological time.
• To bridge the gap between molecular phylogenetics and paleontological systematics.
• To offer a method for visualizing nested, loosely coupled evolutionary trees.

Main Methods:

• Developed an integrated species-phenon tree merging ancestor-descendant trees of fossil morphotaxa (phena) into species phylogenies.
• Utilized a species-phenon relationship map to manage the complex hierarchy and create graphical footprints for species boxes.
• Applied the tool to a dataset of planktonic foraminifera.

Main Results:

• Successfully created a digital tool that visualizes infraspecific diversity within species across deep time.
• Demonstrated the integration of fossil morphotaxa (phena) within reconstructed species phylogenies.
• Established a methodology for visualizing nested evolutionary trees.

Conclusions:

• The developed tool effectively visualizes infraspecific diversity in deep time, integrating paleontological and phylogenetic data.
• This approach enriches both paleontological systematics and molecular phylogenetics.
• The tool has potential applications for other organisms and types of infraspecific data.