Researchers have created first comprehensive ‘tree of life’ for about 2.3 million species of plants, fungi, animals and microbes. According to the researchers from about eleven organizations, who have digitized the tree, all the species in the tree were branched off over time from a common ancestor.

The researchers have written about the tree in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on September 18. They said the tree, which reveals about the evolution of species, is accessible to everyone and can be updated on opentreeoflife.org.

The researchers said, “Because scientists believe that all life on Earth shares a common genetic ancestor, understanding how millions of species are related helps them improve agricultural methods and better understand viruses”.

While announcing the project, Karen Cranston, a computational phylogeneticist at Duke University and lead researcher, said there is big difference between what researchers know about species on earth and the truth about their digital availability.

According to the researchers, there is shortage of studies that have digital data that people can use. In last 10 years, there was only study which provided digital data on species on earth that others can use, the researchers said.

The first digital tree of life is based on about 484 trees that show evolution of living things on earth, from an insect to human to an animal. Cranston said the tree should be considered as the first attempt to connect all the species with one another.