TimeTree

<p>TimeTree is a free public database developed by <a href="/facts/Stephen_Blair_Hedges/nGYSPVDR">S. Blair Hedges</a> and Sudhir Kumar, now at <a href="/facts/Temple_University/trvSdFWo">Temple University</a>, for presenting times of divergence in the <a href="/facts/Tree_of_life_(biology)/woHaYdLT">tree of life</a>. The basic concept has been to produce and present a community consensus of the <a href="/facts/Timetree/7fYX9X8o">timetree</a> of life  from published studies, and allow easy access to that information on the web or mobile device. The database permits searching for average node times between two <a href="/facts/Species/oDg6b96r">species</a> or higher taxa, viewing a timeline from the perspective of a taxon, which shows all divergences back to the origin of life, and building a <a href="/facts/Timetree/7fYX9X8o">timetree</a> of a chosen taxon or user-submitted group of taxa. TimeTree has been used in public education to conceptualize the evolution of life, such as in high school settings. David Attenborough's Emmy Award-winning film and television program <a href="/facts/David_Attenborough%27s_Rise_of_Animals:_Triumph_of_the_Vertebrates/GSdx38pn">Rise of Animals</a> used Hedges and Kumar's circular <a href="/facts/Timetree/7fYX9X8o">timetree</a> of life, generated from the TimeTree database, as a framework for the production. The <a href="/facts/Timetree/7fYX9X8o">timetree</a> was brought to life using animated computer-generated imagery in scenes every 10 minutes during the 2-hour movie. The original development of TimeTree, by Hedges and Kumar, dates to the late 1990s, with initial support from NASA Astrobiology Institute. Since then, it has been supported by additional grants from NASA, and by NSF and NIH. The current version (v5) was released in 2022 and contains data from 4,075 studies and 137,306 species.
</p>

TimeTree open-in-new

TimeTree