Visualizing Phylogeography in 3D

When we want to visualize biogeographical distributions we usually create maps. When we want to visualize phylogenetics we often build taxonomic trees. What if we want to visualize phylogeography? Typically we use maps and phylogenetic trees side-by-side. There is a relatively new tool called GeoPhyloBuilder that joins the two. It is available in ArcGIS 9.3 and later versions and was created by David Kidd and Xianhua Liu of The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (2008).  GeoPhyloBuilder builds a 3D spatiotemporal, phylogenetic GIS data model by attaching the phylogenetic tree tips to the geographical locations of the samples. The geographical locations can be points, lines, or polygons. The 3D dimension comes from the node depths of the phylogenetic tree.  Longer, older branches are elevated further above the map.  The model can be visualized in 2D or 3D in ArcMap, ArcScene, or other Earth Browsers. Examples of images and movies as well as the download are available at: https://www.nescent.org/sites/evoviz/GeoPhyloBuilder.  Although some of these images make the phylogenetic tree look like spaghetti hanging over a map, you can color code different branches to see how they relate geographically. You can also visualize the 3D images in a movie, rotating the image so that you can get varying perspectives. Passing information on is easiest when you have powerful visuals and this may be helpful for some phylogeographical results.

Lisa Marrack

Phylogenies of the freshwater fish family Goodienae: (purple; Webb et al., 2004) and genera Poeciliopsis (green; Mateos et al., 2002) and Notropis (blue; Schonhuth & Doadrio, 2003) with modern elevation and drainage. Pliocene and Miocene drainage and palaeolakes from de Cserna & Alvarez (1995). [In Kidd and Ritchie (2006): Journal of Biogeography].


 

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