Phylogenetic
Composer

The Phylogenetic Composer is an interface between the Open Tree of Life and Wikipedia, created primarily with three.js and the Web Audio API. The Open Tree of Life provides a comprehensive database of every known species on our planet, and their evolutionary relationships. Circles in the Phylogenetic Composer represent individual taxa (or multiple related taxa).

Click or tap on these circles in order to reveal descendant taxa and species. Click and hold again to "close" open taxa. You can also zoom in and out with the mouse wheel, and click and drag to move the camera to get a closer look at certain branches of the tree of life.

As you explore the tree, its branches and leaves will generate musical structures, using the textual data of each node. If you're interested in the specific implementation of this algorithm, or simply want to learn more about this project, please visit the GitHub link below.

- Theodore Michels, 2015