Open Tree of Life Web APIs

This is the documentation of v3.0 of the Open Tree of Life APIs, released April 7, 2016. We plan to deprecate version 2.0 APIs in June 2016. If you have trouble with either version of the APIs, please leave a feedback issue or contact us using one of the other methods on our contact page.

• Release notes for web API v3 for users of v2

The base URL for all services:

https://api.opentreeoflife.org/v3/

Links to methods for the various OpenTree components:

• synthetic tree
• taxonomy
• taxonomic name resolution (TNRS)
• studies (phylesystem)

There are detailed descriptions of the Open Tree API datatypes (standardized sets of fields returned by some methods). Note that new fields may be added (and documented) in the future without versioning this API.

Synthetic tree methods

Methods for accessing the synthetic tree of life. For details, see the Synthetic tree API v3 page, or click on any method name.

URL	Summary
/tree_of_life/about	Return information about the current synthetic tree.
/tree_of_life/node_info	Return information about a node in the tree.
/tree_of_life/mrca	Return the most recent common ancestor of a set of nodes in the synthetic tree.
/tree_of_life/subtree	Return the complete subtree below a given node.
/tree_of_life/induced_subtree	Return the induced subtree on the synthetic tree that relates a set of nodes.

Taxonomy methods

Methods for accessing information about the Open Tree Taxonomy (OTT). For details, see the Taxonomy API v3 page, or click on any method name.

URL	Summary
/taxonomy/about	Return information about the taxonomy, including version.
/taxonomy/mrca	Return the taxon that is the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of a set of taxa.
/taxonomy/subtree	Return the taxonomy subtree descended from specified taxon.
/taxonomy/taxon_info	Return information about a specified taxon.

TNRS methods

Methods for taxonomic name reconciliation (TNRS) based on the Open Tree Taxonomy. For details, see the TNRS API v3 page, or click on any method name.

URL	Summary
/tnrs/match_names	Return a list of potential matches to known taxonomic names.
/tnrs/autocomplete_name	Return a list of potential matches, given a partial taxonomic name.
/tnrs/contexts	Return a list of pre-defined taxonomic contexts (i.e. clades), which can be used to limit the scope of tnrs queries.
/tnrs/infer_context	Return a taxonomic context given a list of taxonomic names.

Study methods

Methods for accessing published phylogenies in the phylesystem datastore. For details, see the Studies API v3 page, or click on any method name.

URL	Summary
/studies/find_studies	Return studies that match a given property.
/studies/find_trees	Return trees (and containing studies) that match a given property.
/studies/properties	Return the list of properties that can be used to search studies and trees.
/study/{STUDY_ID}	Return a study.
/study/{STUDY_ID}/tree/{TREE_ID}	Return a tree from within a study.