1KITE: Resolving the Evolution of Insects

The scientists of the international 1KITE project (http://www.1kite.org/) sucessfully calculated the largest molecular phylogenetic tree for insects. 100 researchers from 10 countries collaborated to understand the evolution of insects, the most species-rich group of animals worldwide. To reconstruct the phylogenetic tree, the researchers deployed modern DNA sequencing techniques, created new algorithms and methods, and used the power of supercomputers. The results have been published in "Science" on November 7, 2014 (Vol. 346 no. 6210 pp. 763-767, DOI: 10.1126/science.1257570 ) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346...

Bernhard Misof (Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn) was one of the project coordinators.https://www.zfmk.de/en

HITS researcher Alexandros Stamatakis and his Scientific Computing group developed novel software and algorithms to handle the Big Data in this project. http://www.h-its.org/english/research...

On the "SuperMUC" system (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Garching) the calculations were conducted using 32000 processors simulataneously. http://www.lrz.de/services/compute/su...

See more in the HITS press release here:
http://www.h-its.org/english/press/cb...
http://www.h-its.org/english/index.php

This movie was produced by HITS.
Copyright: HITS gGmbH
Script: Pia Grzesiak
Camera: Dirk Weiler