Printable Customized Tree of Life for beginners

Hello

For a weekend event which we would like to introduce taxonomy to new nature observers (or any one really) I had an idea to generate a Printable Tree of Life.

We would follow the structure used by iNaturalist. There are 11 Groups - excluding “Unknown”. The idea here is to help people explore each group (and sub groups within it )

We are not necessarily going to cover ever single “sub component / taxa / sub group” but to start from a broad level and then have one line definitions for a particular taxon (and common examples for each) and then share examples of them.

Depending on the locations, where we would be organising the physical events, we could possibly even generate a list of most common species in that specific “node”.

We also would like to help them explore the higher levels as well and how they may be connected.

The focus group are people new to Biological Taxonomy and Nature watching - so by sharing a structure and examples we want to help try and frame an understanding.

I understand there will be no easy method as we would need use local judgement to include or exclude certain taxa / sub-groups.

Would any of you know of any “templates” or “tools”.

I have started to do it by hand

For example Insects are 3 sub taxa and the prominent one is Winged and Once-winged Insects - within this, my guess is, it would be adequate to indicate 5 or 6 of the more popular / easy to see taxa

This is just an example

Insects - (has 3 sub groups)

    Most Prominent is **Winged and Once-winged Insects** <one line definition>  <has n sub groups>
            (within this we have (the 5 - 6 groups most likely to be seen over a few hours)

                    **Butterflies and Moths** Order Lepidoptera  <one line definition and examples> 

                    **Beetles** Order Coleoptera  <

                    **Ants, Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies** Order Hymenoptera  

                    **True Bugs, Hoppers, Aphids, and Allies** Order Hemiptera  

                    **Flies** Order Diptera  

                    **Dragonflies and Damselflies** Order Odonata  

                    **Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Katydids** Order Orthoptera  

I expect the output to be an A5 sized booklet - that people can use to tick off – add notes / names etc


Look forward to suggestions
Thanks

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.