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Scientists around the world, including taxonomic experts studying everything from insects to viruses and dinosaurs to plants, work every day to add to our knowledge of biodiversity through scholarly research released in peer-reviewed publications. MorphoBank, developed and supported by funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation as well as institutional members, is a digital archive of those data, facilitating open sharing of observations published by today's scientists.
Specifically, MorphoBank assists scientists building the Tree of Life - the genealogy of all living and extinct species. In this endeavor scientists must collect data on all heritable features - both genotypes (e.g., DNA sequences) and phenotypes (e.g., anatomy, behavior, physiology). MorphoBank is part of the new and growing cyberinfrastructure for phenotypes to house, save and share information on anatomy, physiology, behavior and other features of species. The genomic part of this work is archived at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
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