Welcome to the taxonomy browser™

The taxonomy browser™ is an original data analysis tool for visualizing the taxonomic relationships among the prokaryotes. The relationships are based on the evolutionary distances between the organisms, as measured using the small subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) molecule which are visualized using techniques drawn from the field of exploratory data analysis. Our preferred methods of analysis include 2-D maps based on principal components analysis (PCA), and heatmaps (also known as shaded distance matrices or Eisen plots when applied to microarray data) with the range of colors representing the range of distances. The coherence of taxa can be evaluated visually and taxonomic and nomenclatural (annotation) errors can be readily spotted using this approach. The taxonomy browser™ is based on code written in the S-Plus™ language (Insightful) and implemented using the S engine to produce stand-alone java applets and StatServer™ for interactive applications.

Support for this research was provided through a grant from the US Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research Grant # DE-FG02-02ER63315.
Portions of this work are covered under US Patents (pending)