BrassiBase 2025

Trees

Explore phylogenetic trees of the Brassicaceae tribes

With the latest family-wide taxonomic revision (German et al. 2023) the Brassicaceae has been divided into two subfamilies. Subfamily Aethionemoideae contains one one tribe (Aethionemeae), whereas all remaing 60 tribes are distributed among the five supertribes Arabidae, Brassicodae, Camelinodae, Heliophilodae and Hesperodae (subfamily Brassicoideae). The phylogenetic structure of the tribal tree shown is a synopis following Hendriks et al. (2023).

The tribal tree allows to navigate through individual tribal trees, which are based on the curated BrassiBase ITS reference data set (Internal Transcribed Spacer of Ribosomal DNA). However, the presented tribal trees cannot replace any detailed phylogenetic analysis! They are are based on ITS sequences only, and they are also not constraint in their topology by evidence given from other phylogenetic studies. For the pros and cons of ITS sequences as marker in phylogenetic studies please refer to Kiefer et al. (2014).

Most sequences, however, have been published in the context of carefully conducted taxonmic-systematic studies and via the GenBank code respective information can be searched for in GenBank. In addition, we included many re-analysed data of accessions included in Hendrik et al. (2023) providing an object related link to the most recent and comprehensive family-wide phylogeny (SRA and GenBank codes available in tribal tree accession labels).

German DA, Hendriks KP, Koch MA, Lens F, Lysak MA, Bailey CD, Mummenhoff K, Al-Shehbaz IA. 2023. An updated classification of the Brassicaceae (Cruciferae). PhytoKeys 220: 127–144.
Hendriks KP, Kiefer C, Al-Shehbaz IA, et al. 2023. Global Brassicaceae phylogeny based on filtering of 1,000-gene dataset. Current Biology 33: 1-17.
Kiefer M, Schmickl R, German D, Lysak M, Al-Shehbaz IA, Franzke A, Mummenhoff K, Stamatakis A, Koch MA. 2014. BrassiBase: Introduction to a Novel Knowledge Database on Brassicaceae Evolution. Plant Cell and Physiology 55: e3

Main page

Tribetree

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Brassicaceae phylogenies

Family level

When opening this tool you are placed on the level of the Brassicaceae family, displaying a rough tree depicting the relationships between the systemtic tribes. Supertribes are color-coded:

Arabodae
Brassicodae
Camelinodae
Heliophilodae
Hesperodae

To get to the tree of a specific tribe click on its name.

Tribe level

The tribe level consists of a tree built from sequences of the selected Brassicaceae tribe. The leave names consist of the sample's scientific name along with its Accession number (if available). On larger tribes the outermost leave nodes might be combined for readability. This is indicated by a colored dot in their place. If you hover your mouse pointer above the dot a tooltip will inform you about what is hidden underneath it. If you click the node name next to it the leaves in question will be shown.

If you click on a leave name you will be presented with the respective ITS sequence. Have a look at the placement tool for an explanation about ITS (internal transcribed spacer). Outgroup sequences are marked with the prefix "OUT".

You can always go back to the tribe level tree with the button on top labelled accordingly.

Display modes

Radial tree: The radial tree is the default mode. Its root is in the center and it can provide a better overview and less need to scroll.
Rectangular tree: The rectangular tree might look more familiar. Its root is on the left and it might be easier to interpret. Since you can easily scroll through it there's no need to hide any leaf nodes.
ASCII tree: The ASCII tree looks less sophisticated than the more graphical other display modes. But it's easy to copy and paste and it provides meaningful branch lengths. This display might not work well with larger tribes.
Newick: The Newick fomrat is the well-known computer-readable parentheses fomrat for storing phylogenetic diagrams. You can copy/paste it to use your own tree viewer with it.
Alignment: This will show you the DNA-Alignment that we used to construct the tree. It is displayed in a pretty format if it is not too large. For performance reasons we'll fall back to un-prettified Nexus format above a certain numer of sequences.

Supertribes: Arabodae Brassicodae Camelinodae Heliophilodae Hesperodae

Placement of tribe Hillielleae → is unclear at the time of this release.

BrassiBase v2025

Funded by DFG

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