TreeBASE is a relational database designed to manage and explore information on phylogenetic relationships (Sanderson et al., 1993, 1994; Piel et al., 1996; Morel, 1996; Piel et al., 2000). It includes phylogenetic trees and data matrices, together with information about the relevant publication, taxa, morphological and sequence-based characters, and published analyses.
The database is designed to allow retrieval of trees and data from different studies so that existing phylogenetic results may be reassessed, compared, combined and reused. Applications include:
The prototype for TreeBASE was first launched in 1994 (Sanderson et al. 1994, Piel et al., 2002) with funding from NSF SGER (NSF DEB 9318325: "A prototype database of phylogenetic studies"). The database underwent a complete redevelopment and redesign with funding from the Cyberinfrastructure for Phylogenetic Research project (NSF EF 0331654: "Building the Tree of Life -- A National Resource for Phyloinformatics and Computational Phylogenetics").
TreeBASE was released in March 2010 as one of the main products of The Phyloinformatics Research Foundation, Inc., a Connecticut non-stock corporation. The Foundation provides direction, governance, and continuity for software, data sharing, and communication standards to promote phyloinformatic research for the scientific community.
The current version of the database is 2.0 (released March 2010), and is hosted by Naturalis Biodiversity Center. In previous years the database has been hosted by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, the Yale Peabody Museum, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the University at Buffalo, Harvard University, Leiden University, and the University of California, Davis.
The logo displayed on the TreeBASE web-application has been adapted to match the color style of the website. Please use the logo shown here for linking to or citing TreeBASE.