Explore species through the tree of life on the African DSI DataBank

The African DSI DataBank holds digital sequence information for more than 1,300 species, from bacteria and viruses to crops, livestock and wildlife. Until now you found them by name, place or data type. Today we are adding a new way in: through the tree of life.

Browse by tree. The new Species tree page arranges every species in the DataBank by its classification, from domain and kingdom down to genus and species. Open a branch to see what lies beneath it and how many species it holds, then go straight to any species’ page. It is a quick way to see, for example, every Brucella species we hold, or every bovid, from cattle and goats to duikers. The tree follows NCBI Taxonomy, so it shows how species are classified. It is not a phylogeny, and it says so on the page.

Related species on every species page. Each species page now lists the species in the DataBank closest to it in the classification, nearest group first. Sorghum’s page, for example, lists pearl millet and fonio first, then finger millet and teff, each one a click away with its own sequences and records.

Published phylogenies. Where a published tree of life includes them, a species page now also shows a cladogram of the species and its relatives: the order in which their lineages branched, as reconstructed by others from sequence data and published studies.

1. Animals, plants and fungi come from the Open Tree of Life synthetic tree, which brings together thousands of published phylogenies. The African elephant’s page, for example, places the elephant and the golden mole together in Afrotheria, apart from the rhinos, giraffe and great apes held in the DataBank.
2. Bacteria and archaea come from the Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB), whose tree is built from genomes. Its names sometimes differ from NCBI’s, and the tree shows both.

Each tree is shown on its own, never merged with another, and is labelled with its source, release and licence, with the studies it draws on. Species are matched to these trees only by their NCBI Taxonomy identifier, never by name. A species placed only from the source’s taxonomy, with no published study behind it yet, is marked ◇. A species that is not one group in the tree is marked ‡. Any species that cannot be shown is listed with the reason. A cladogram shows branching order only, not time or distance.

Why it matters. Knowing what a species is related to helps in choosing reference genomes, comparing pathogens with their relatives and planning conservation work. It also shows where Africa’s biodiversity is still missing from published phylogenies: a ◇ beside a species shows that no published study has placed it yet.

Try it. Open Species tree in the menu at https://hub.africandsidatabank.africa/species-tree, or scroll to Related species and Published phylogeny on any species page. No account is needed.

The trees are refreshed automatically when their sources publish new releases. We thank the Open Tree of Life and GTDB teams for sharing their work openly.