Contributing to Tree of Life

How to contribute to the Tree of Life

You can contribute to the Tree of Life in three ways, by:

Authoring Tree of Life pages for a clade of organisms
Coordinating Tree of Life pages for a clade of organisms
Donating figures, references, links, and other assistance to those maintaining Tree of Life sites.

Coordinators and authors of a page are chosen by the coordinators of the enclosing clade; for example, Michael Donoghue, who is coordinating flowering plants, has as one of his tasks choice of authors and coordinators for the pages descended from the basal angiosperm pages. Thus, the project currently functions more as a multi-chapter book, with authors choosen by the editors and associate editors, and less as a scientific journal, with submitted papers. However, we welcome potential contributors informing us of their interest in contributing; their offers will be considered by the relevant coordinators.

A list of participants is available that gives information on those who have agreed to coordinate or author various pages in the project.

Authoring Tree of Life pages

An ideal author has the following properties:

Thorough knowledge of phylogeny of the clade, including knowledge of morphological and molecular evidence, and of fossils
Open-minded, non-dogmatic view about the phylogeny of the clade, willing to present alternative hypotheses
Enthusiasm for the project, and time to work on it
Familiarity with computers

We encourage collaborative efforts. The ideal collection of authors should (collectively) fulfill the above criteria.

More details about authoring pages can be found on the Information for Authors page.

If you are interested in authoring the Tree of Life pages for your favorite clade, the best thing to do is to contact us by sending an e-mail message to tree@ag.arizona.edu. Tell us what group of organisms you are interested in contributing to the Tree, and the nature of your work on the group. We can pass your offer to the relevant coordinator for consideration, and give you more details about what's involved.

Coordinating Tree of Life pages

Coordinators serve as associate editors for a section of the Tree. Coordinators seek and help choose people to coordinate and author subgroups. An ideal coordinator has the following properties:

Knowledge of phylogeny of the clade
Knowledge of morphological and molecular evidence, as well as fossil groups
Open-minded, non-dogmatic view about the phylogeny of the clade
Congenial relationships with systematists who work on the clade
Enthusiasm for the project, and time to work on it
Familiarity with computers

We encourage collaborative efforts. The ideal collection of coordinators should (collectively) fulfill the above criteria.

Coordinators for a clade will generally be the authors of basal pages of a clade; they may also be authors and coordinators of subgroups, as their expertise dictates.

If you are interested in coordinating the Tree of Life pages for your favorite clade, the best thing to do is to contact us by sending an e-mail message to tree@ag.arizona.edu. Tell us what group of organisms you are interested in contributing to the Tree, and the nature of your work on the group. We can pass your offer to the relevant coordinator for consideration, and give you more details about what's involved.

Donating assistance to Tree of Life

Links

If you have made, or know of, a WWW site concerning a group of organisms and want to have a link to this site from the appropriate point on the Tree of Life, please send an e-mail to tree@ag.arizona.edu with the Name, URL, and brief description of your site. Also indicate the most appropriate clade in the Tree from which to make the link.

Illustrations and other information

If you have photographs or figures of organisms you want to donate to illustrate the Tree of Life, or if you wish to suggest references for parts of the Tree, please contact us at tree@ag.arizona.edu.