A new LUCApedia database for data-driven research on early evolutionary history

Motivation Many topics within the study of the origin and early evolution of life are amenable to computational research strategies. Over a decade ago, the original LUCApedia was developed in order to facilitate such research. Here we describe a massively overhauled LUCApedia database and web server. Results The database is composed of seventeen different datasets based on previous studies or published hypotheses about the last universal common ancestor and its evolutionary predecessors. Similar to the original LUCApedia database, these datasets are mapped onto a common framework so that they can be corroborated with one another and used to examine continuity across different stages of early evolution. Availability and implementation The database can be searched, browsed, and downloaded from the LUCApedia web server, https://lucapedia.org/.