Visualization of evolutionary relationships through geologic time in Timescale Creator

Abstract

Evolutionary trees showing interpretations of the divergences, lineages, extinctions and relative abundances of life forms through geologic time provide a very useful visualization for both public audiences and research communities. The Java-based TimeScale Creator platform was originally designed to present graphics of Earth history with a streamlined interface. We have added an evolutionary tree display column in addition to the array of other geo-history columns for chart making and on-screen exploration through any interval of geologic time. Features in the evolutionary tree display include on-screen images of life forms, single-click on/off control of color-coded family branches, pop-up windows giving additional details, embedded evolution charts of morphotypes that developed within genotypes, an option to make more-compact charts by allowing new evolutionary branches to reposition over earlier extinct branches, and export/import of some common evolution-data sharing formats. A suite of current public datapacks using this evolutionary-tree visualization include major vertebrate groups (including dinosaurs), marine plankton through the past ca. 70 million years, and the Tree of Life of extant organisms. Students and researchers can upload their own datasets using a simple tabular-data format from Excel-type spreadsheets. The package and external datapacks are freely available at www.timescalecreator.org. The intended audiences range from Earth-science classes in schools to paleontologists and evolutionary biologists who wish to compare their phylogenies to other geologic events and trends of Earth history.