TreeGenes and CartograTree: Community Resources for Forest Tree Genomics

Changes in the frequency, duration, or severity of drought and heat stress associated with climate change could modify the composition, structure, and biogeography of forests in many regions.  It is critical to identify vulnerable populations as well as individuals that are resistant to the pests, pathogens, and fluctuating temperatures that result from climate change.  These identifications rely on reliable integration of high resolution genomic, phenotypic, and environmental data.  We will discuss recent development in the TreeGenes project, and specifically the CartograTree interface which aims to deliver this level of integration to the research community.  TreeGenes is a web-based database that provides interfaces and tools to collect, curate, visualize, and analyze data from over 1700 forest tree species.  The map-based CartograTree interface connects georeferenced trees with curated phenotypic and genetic data as well as environmental metrics from sources such as Ameriflux and WorldClim.  Through the use of SSWAP (Simple Semantic Web Architecture and Protocol) web services, researchers are able to directly access high performance computing resources to run specific applications such as  MUSCLE for sequence alignment or TASSEL for genetic association analyses.  Current development has been focused on improving the integration of robust environmental layers by migrating from the Google Maps API to a vector-tile map delivery method and switching to a NoSQL database to improve performance. Future plans include improvements to data filtering and visualization prior to association analysis and full implementation of trait and environmental ontologies to extend the utility of the search interface.