Simple online cladogram maker?

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

Hey

Do any of you know of websites/apps in which one can build a simple cladogram from scratch?

Thanks in advance.

-Christian

[CBchiefski]

3 hours ago, The Amateur Paleontologist said:

Hey

Do any of you know of websites/apps in which one can build a simple cladogram from scratch?

Thanks in advance.

-Christian

For a simple application and to create preliminary trees, I use https://www.mesquiteproject.org/

One nice aspect of mesquite is that compared to many programs it is easy to use and straightforward, that said I would advise against using its results in a scientific paper. It is great for learning more about cladistics, class projects, and quick preliminary results.

 

For a more complex analysis and robust phylogenetic trees, I use http://mrbayes.sourceforge.net/

MrBayes is often used to produce trees for actual scientific publications.

Hope this helps, not saying they are the best as both have their faults but they remain my personal favorites.

Edited September 1, 2018 by CBchiefski
Added more info

[DPS Ammonite]

Thank you Eric for helping Christian find a cladigram problem. Only an expert who has created a cladigram could have given such a good answer. I took a look at the links that gave the features of each program; it might as well have been written in Greek.

[CBchiefski]

1 hour ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Thank you Eric for helping Christian find a cladigram problem. Only an expert who has created a cladigram could have given such a good answer. I took a look at the links that gave the features of each program; it might as well have been written in Greek.

Happy to help, ironically the largest cladogram I have made so far was on dragons, yes you read that correctly fictional dragons. So for anyone looking to learn more @The Amateur Paleontologist @WhodamanHD, it was a great project and forced me to become much better with cladistics. Since I am sure to get a question or two, the tree was made with mesquite and incorporated several real taxa to compare with plus we used those real taxa as a control tree. It lists the dragon or animal taxa and the what we used as our "holotype" example for said group. Using dragons is a great academic exercise for learning cladistics actually. Anyway, if you ever wondered how dragons might be related our "paper" is attached...

Dragon paper.pdf

Edited September 1, 2018 by CBchiefski
Added "paper"

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

Alright, thanks for that 

Just to know, is that paper published? And if so, where? 

-Christian

[Miocene_Mason]

2 hours ago, CBchiefski said:

So for anyone looking to learn more @The Amateur Paleontologist @WhodamanHD,

Ya got me! I might have some fun playing around with this. There are some cladograms that I’ve looked for online that simply don’t exist, so I might have to make them for myself. For fun of course

[CBchiefski]

On 9/1/2018 at 9:42 AM, The Amateur Paleontologist said:

Alright, thanks for that 

Just to know, is that paper published? And if so, where? 

-Christian

Haha, perhaps in time it actually will be used as an example for cladistic instruction, a sample data set and problem so to speak.  

On 9/1/2018 at 11:03 AM, WhodamanHD said:

Ya got me! I might have some fun playing around with this. There are some cladograms that I’ve looked for online that simply don’t exist, so I might have to make them for myself. For fun of course

Nice, and I hear you there. Making your own is by far and way the best practice for understanding what is actually behind a tree, it removes the black magic and reveals the man behind the curtain, so to speak. Personally, I am still astounded by the mathematics behind it. 
 

If either of you might be interested, I am working with a group on a similar project, cannot say much yet other than you should learn a bit more and gain practice with cladistics.

[Miocene_Mason]

1 hour ago, CBchiefski said:

Nice, and I hear you there. Making your own is by far and way the best practice for understanding what is actually behind a tree, it removes the black magic and reveals the man behind the curtain, so to speak. Personally, I am still astounded by the mathematics behind it. 
 

If either of you might be interested, I am working with a group on a similar project, cannot say much yet other than you should learn a bit more and gain practice with cladistics.

Yeah, I used to think cladistics would be the boring tedious thing. As I’ve learned it, I’ve seen it’s actually an interesting world where a lot of drama takes place (albeit sometimes slowly) and unique problems are found. I haven’t gotten to play around with it yet as my computer is sub par but am still looking forward to it. 

 

Good luck on your project, you’ve caught my interest! I’ll keep an eye out

[jdp]

I periodically work with phylogenetics. What specifics are you looking to do? There are a lot of free tools out there but some are easier to use than others, and which you want to learn really depends on what you're trying to do.