MorphoBank
Building the tree of life with phenotypes
There are around nine million living species on earth, plus hundreds of thousands of fossil species. Capturing and sharing this knowledge contributes to understanding the current and past biodiversity of our planet, and impacts everything from medicine and drug discovery to agriculture.
Founded in 2001, MorphoBank is a collaborative Open Source and largely Open Access resource for the creation, preservation, and sharing of phylogenetic matrices. Researchers in comparative biology, paleontology and anthropology use MorphoBank in constructing the tree of life — a genealogy of all living and extinct species.
MorphoBank is home to scientific data and images, curated selections from relevant literature, and essential tools for conducting phylogenetic analyses using a range of methodologies. MorphoBank curators assess submitted data and work to optimize discoverability and reusability.
Benefits of MorphoBank
For researchers, MorphoBank offers rapid real-time collaboration, large data capacity, and a range of powerful purpose-built research tools.
Collaborative
Collaborate on matrices in real time. Build and manage your morphological data matrices as data is being collected.
Powerful
Upload and download Nexus or TNT files, and edit these in MorphoBank’s online workspace. Robust tools for labeling, manipulating and comparing.
Community
Connect with thousands of researchers, and explore hundreds of thousands of carefully curated files and analyses.
Publishers and libraries appreciate MorphoBank for its open source, open access approach, citable DOIs, and high-quality metadata, preservation, and accessibility standards.
Free to read and use
MorphoBank is an open source platform. Open Access licensing is strongly encouraged for projects on the platform. Member libraries and museums help keep our resources accessible to all.
Secure
With MorphoBank, speciality data is preserved, protected, and accessible, with citable DOIs and FAIR data metadata standards.
Become a supporting member.
MorphoBank is free to use, open source, and predominantly Open Access. We rely on the support of our member community to sustain curation and quality control operations, maintain and update technologies, and continue evolving new and essential research tools. For our members, we offer the following benefits. MorphoBank members play a vital role in advancing open data sharing, collaborative research practices, and better, more trusted research.
| Open Science Supporter | Open Science Leader | Open Science Champion | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | $1,500 | $4,050 | $5,300 |
| Branded instance | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Stats on usage, deposits, downloads, & reuse | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Prioritized data curation support | 2 projects | 5 projects | 8 projects |
| Prioritized attention to development requests | 1 | Up to 2 | Up to 3 |
| Live training | 1 virtual training a year |
As a MorphoBank member at any level, you contribute to advancing open science in various ways:
- Open Data Sharing: Your fees support maintaining and enhancing the platform, facilitating data sharing and collaboration among researchers.
- Data Curation and Quality Control: Part of your fees ensures datasets meet high standards for accuracy and reliability.
- Community Engagement: We allocate fees to workshops, webinars, and conferences, fostering knowledge exchange and collaboration.
- Software Development: Your support helps develop user-friendly tools that promote transparency and reproducibility.
FAQs
Why choose MorphoBank?
Generalist repositories deal with a wide variety of data types. MorphoBank is purpose-built for phylogenetic data, and offers specialized structures specific to the forms and formats of our discipline. Our data curators are subject area experts who help ensure that the data we house is discoverable and reusable. And MorphoBank is where you’ll find your colleagues’ work, which helps streamline collaboration and accelerate discovery.