I'm not sure if people know about this yet, so I thought I'd point it out. iPlant Discovery Environment [1] is a web GUI that hosts various R functions and other phylogenetics programs: ape, picante, geiger, ouch, plus raxml, phylip, phyml, and others. Note that with the R packages, it only exposes a few main functions, like ace() for ape, rather than all the functions. It is similar to the cipres web portal in that you can choose what to run and it sends jobs off to a supercomputer, but there isn't much overlap in the programs. It can be nice for running a large number of jobs, especially slow ones you don't want on your desktop. It requires a login but is free. iPlant is sponsored by NSF for building a cyberinfrastructure for plants, but it appears to be open to all organisms. New tools can be added by users [2], so you can add your favorite but slow package.
Right now, the interface is a GUI, so it doesn't feel like R, despite having some R in the back end. Barb Banbury [3], a postdoc in my lab, is working on a dedicated R interface to iPlant tools using their API -- stay tuned for more news on that. Best, Brian [1]: http://www.iplantcollaborative.org/discover/discovery-environment [2]: https://pods.iplantcollaborative.org/wiki/display/DEmanual/Integrating+an+Application+into+the+Discovery+Environment [3]: http://barbbanbury.info _______________________________________ Brian O'Meara Assistant Professor Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology U. of Tennessee, Knoxville http://www.brianomeara.info Students wanted: Applications due Dec. 15, annually Postdoc collaborators wanted: Check NIMBioS' website Calendar: http://www.brianomeara.info/calendars/omeara _______________________________________________ R-sig-phylo mailing list [email protected] https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-phylo
