Tree Submission Page

Trees must be in nexus format without translation tables (i.e., the taxon name must be imbedded in the parenthetical notation). If it is easier for you, taxon labels can have latitude and longitude in decimal degrees using colons to separate them, i.e. 'Homo sapiens:38.2342:-57.9323'. Alternatively, you can enter this information later. Please do not submit trees that cross the international dateline — our parser is not ready to display trees of this kind.

Return-key style:

Nexus file to upload:

Detailed Instructions

Preparing a tree for submission can be tedious, but on a Macintosh it's pretty easy using Excel, MacClade 4+, and BBEdit. Here is how I do it:

  1. The coordinates must be in decimal degrees, i.e. I have to convert "57° 23' 10" W", into "-57.3861" — where western and southern hemispheres are written as a negative number. Using an Excel spreadsheet, a simple formula will do the trick, e.g. =A1+(B1/60)+(C1/3600)or =(A1+(B1/60)+(C1/3600))*(-1)
  2. Prepare an Excel file with a column that has the exact taxon label as in your nexus file but concatenated with the latitude and longitude with each of these separated by colons. Sort the columns alphabetically by taxon label. So for example, if the taxon label is in column B, the latitude in C, and the longitude in D, enter the following formula in column A: =B1&":"&C1&":"&D1 ...the result is like: Homo sapiens:38.2342:-57.9323
  3. Open your nexus file in MacClade; sort the taxon labels alphabetically; save with the translation table and taxon block turned on. Verify that the order of taxon labels in MacClade and Excel are identical.
  4. Copy column A from the spreadsheet and paste it into BBEdit. Do a find-replace so that each element is surrounded by single quotes -- for example, find all \r and replace with '\r'. The result is: 'Homo sapiens:38.2342:-57.9323'
  5. Open your nexus file with BBEdit, copy/paste the list of single-quoted labels into the TAXON BLOCK, replacing the original list of labels. In the TREE BLOCK, delete everything between and including TRANSLATE and the next semicolon. Save the file.
  6. Open the nexus file in MacClade and save it with the translation table and taxon block turned off.
  7. Now open the file in BBEdit and delete all blocks except for the TREE BLOCK. Remove any comments, verify the return-key setting (whether it's UNIX, Mac, or DOS). If your names have accents or other diacriticals, set the character type to UNICODE UTF8. Save this file and then upload it.

Example tree file in BBEdit with Macintosh character returns and UTF-8 Encoding: