Adds tips to a backbone phylogeny using taxonomy simulated with birth-death models

TACT requires Python 3. When possible, we recommend using the PyPy 3 implementation as it can significantly speed up TACT analyses, particularly on large datasets. In addition, TACT depends on the click, DendroPy, NumPy, and SciPy packages.

Using Homebrew is the recommended way to install TACT. Install Homebrew on macOS or Install Homebrew on Linux or Windows 10. Once Homebrew has been installed, run

brew install jonchang/biology/tact

If you are unable or unwilling to use Homebrew, the next recommended way to install TACT is via pipx. Install pipx, then run:

pipx install tact

Other ways of installing TACT, including unpacking the tarball somewhere or directly using pip, are neither supported nor recommended.

Files used are in the examples folder.

curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jonchang/tact/master/examples/Carangaria.csv
curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jonchang/tact/master/examples/Carangaria.tre

Build a taxonomic tree using the provided CSV file. Run tact_build_taxonomic_tree --help to see the required format for this file.

$ tact_build_taxonomic_tree Carangaria.csv --output Carangaria.taxonomy.tre
Output written to: Carangaria.taxonomy.tre

Carangaria.taxonomy.tre now contains a Newick phylogeny with many polytomies and named nodes indicating relevant taxonomic ranks. Now run the TACT stochastic polytomy resolver algorithm in conjunction with the backbone phylogeny Caragaria.tre.

$ tact_add_taxa --backbone Carangaria.tre --taxonomy Carangaria.taxonomy.tre --output Carangaria.tacted --verbose --verbose
Rates  [####################################]  226/226
TACT  [####################################]  642/642  Carangaria

There will be several files created with the prefix Carangaria.tacted. These include newick.tre and nexus.tre (your primary output in the form of Newick and NEXUS format phylogenies), rates.csv (estimated diversification rates on the backbone phylogeny), and log.txt (extremely verbose output on what TACT is doing and why).

You should check the TACT results now for any issues:

$ tact_check_results Carangaria.tacted.newick.tre --backbone Carangaria.tre --taxonomy Carangaria.taxonomy.tre > checkresults.csv

Open up checkresults.csv in your favorite spreadsheet viewer and check the warnings column for any issues.

Development on TACT uses poetry. Simply clone the repository and install:

$ git clone https://github.com/jonchang/tact.git
$ cd tact
$ poetry install

When releasing a new version of tact, run its tests and bump its revision like so:

$ poetry run pytest # optionally with --script-launch-mode=subprocess
$ poetry version patch # or minor, etc.
$ git commit -p
$ git tag VERSION
$ git push
$ poetry publish --build

TACT is described more fully in its manuscript. If you use TACT, please cite:

• Chang, J., Rabosky, D. L., & Alfaro, M. E. (2019). Estimating diversification rates on incompletely-sampled phylogenies: theoretical concerns and practical solutions. Systematic Biology. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syz081

TACT owes its existence to much foundational work in the area of stochastic polytomy resolution, namely PASTIS and CorSiM.

• Thomas, G. H., Hartmann, K., Jetz, W., Joy, J. B., Mimoto, A., & Mooers, A. O. (2013). PASTIS: an R package to facilitate phylogenetic assembly with soft taxonomic inferences. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 4(11), 1011–1017. doi:10.1111/2041-210x.12117

• Cusimano, N., Stadler, T., & Renner, S. S. (2012). A New Method for Handling Missing Species in Diversification Analysis Applicable to Randomly or Nonrandomly Sampled Phylogenies. Systematic Biology, 61(5), 785–792. doi:10.1093/sysbio/sys031

Please consider sponsoring the maintenance of TACT via GitHub Sponsors.