BEAST estimated phylogeny of anoles. Circles on nodes represent posterior probability, black > 0.95, grey > 0.90, white > 0.70.
In the course of our recent study on sex chromosome evolution in anoles (Gamble et al. in press) [AA post] we assembled a 216-species mitochondrial DNA phylogeny of anoles, the largest published to date (at least that we know of), yet containing only a little more than half of all recognized species. Although we collected new sequences for some species, our dataset is largely built on the hard work of others who collected and published on sequences from across the genus, such as Jackman et al. 1999, Poe 2004, Nicholson et al. 2005, Mahler et al. 2010 [AA post], and Castañeda & de Quieroz 2011 [AA post]. Without access to data from these and other studies, we would have had a far less complete and robust tree for our comparative analyses.
There is a big debate going on now regarding what, where and how much data should be shared in association with publishing academically. I personally feel that providing easy access to those data used and generated during a study serves to accelerate the rate and increase the quality of scientific discovery. I am heartened that more and more journals are making data deposition a requirement for publication, although often this means little more than dumping sequence data to GenBank. Sites like Dryad, Figshare, and GitHub now provide open, permanent, and citable access to raw data, figures and, most importantly in my view, research products like alignments, code and analysis logs. In an effort to make our data as accessible and useful as possible we have archived our alignment, MrBayes and BEAST consensus trees as well as as the BEAST posterior distribution on the digital data repository Dryad [doi link]. It is our hope that other anolologists can use and improve upon these data to ask new, interesting questions and to build a larger, more complete view of the evolution of anoles.
