RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Crowdsourced geometric morphometrics enable rapid large-scale collection and analysis of phenotypic data
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 023382
DO 10.1101/023382
A1 Jonathan Chang
A1 Michael E. Alfaro
YR 2015
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/07/28/023382.abstract
AB Advances in genomics and informatics have enabled the production of large phylogenetic trees. However, the ability to collect large phenotypic datasets has not kept pace.Here, we present a method to quickly and accurately gather morphometric data using crowdsourced image-based landmarking.We find that crowdsourced workers perform similarly to experienced morphologists on the same digitization tasks. We also demonstrate the speed and accuracy of our method on seven families of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii).Crowdsourcing will enable the collection of morphological data across vast radiations of organisms, and can facilitate richer inference on the macroevolutionary processes that shape phenotypic diversity across the tree of life.