Jmodeltest.org: selection of nucleotide substitution models on the cloud

Abstract

[Abstract] The selection of models of nucleotide substitution is one of the major steps of modern phylogenetic analysis. Different tools exist to accomplish this task, among which jModelTest 2 (jMT2) is one of the most popular. Still, to deal with large DNA alignments with hundreds or thousands of loci, users of jMT2 need to have access to High Performance Computing clusters, including installation and configuration capabilities, conditions not always met. Here we present jmodeltest.org, a novel web server for the transparent execution of jMT2 across different platforms and for a wide range of users. Its main benefit is straightforward execution, avoiding any configuration/execution issues, and reducing significantly in most cases the time required to complete the analysis.

Availability and implementation:jmodeltest.org is accessible using modern browsers, such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and IE from http://jmodeltest.org. User registration is not mandatory, but users wanting to have additional functionalities, like access to previous analyses, have the possibility of opening a user account.