The AADR Visualizer: An ArcGIS Online Visualizer for ancient human DNA from the Allen Ancient DNA Resource

Woojung Yi; Elliot Delroba; Beth Zizzamia; Stephanie Spera; Melinda A Yang

doi:10.1093/bioadv/vbaf199

The AADR Visualizer: An ArcGIS Online Visualizer for ancient human DNA from the Allen Ancient DNA Resource

Bioinformatics. 2025 Aug 18;5(1):vbaf199. doi: 10.1093/bioadv/vbaf199. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Woojung Yi¹, Elliot Delroba^{1

2}, Beth Zizzamia², Stephanie Spera², Melinda A Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, 23173, United States of America.
² Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, United States of America.

Abstract

Motivation: The AADR Visualizer is designed to be a public, user-friendly, web-based graphical user interface for visualizing and filtering ancient humans included in the Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR), a regularly updated dataset that compiles published human genome-wide ancient DNA for research uses. This tool increases access to the rapidly growing pool of human ancient DNA available for study, facilitating genomic research and education focused on human prehistoric movement and interaction.

Results: The AADR Visualizer provides the ability to 1) view all available individuals and associated metadata, 2) filter individuals using a diverse set of geographic, temporal, and sequencing information, and 3) search for individuals using group nomenclature as described in the Allen Ancient DNA Resource.

Availability and implementation: The tool is freely available on the web at https://arcg.is/1CyL5n.

Keywords: AADR; ancient DNA; ancient humans; visualization; web services.