Open AccessEvaluating the popularity of R in ecology
Author(s) -
Lai Jiangshan,
Lortie Christopher J.,
Muenchen Robert A.,
Yang Jian,
Ma Keping
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
ecosphere
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.255
H-Index - 57
ISSN - 2150-8925
DOI - 10.1002/ecs2.2567
Subject(s) - popularity , scripting language , ecology , field (mathematics) , workflow , computer science , data science , biology , psychology , mathematics , database , social psychology , pure mathematics , operating system
The programming language R is widely used in many fields. We explored the extent of reported R use in the field of ecology using the Web of Science and text mining. We analyzed the frequencies of R packages reported in more than 60,000 peer‐reviewed articles published in 30 ecology journals during a 10‐yr period ending in 2017. The number of studies reported using R as their primary tool in data analysis increased linearly from 11.4% in 2008 to 58.0% in 2017. The top 10 packages reported were lme4, vegan, nlme, ape, Mu MI n, MASS , mgcv, ade4, multcomp, and car. The increasing popularity of R has most likely furthered open science in ecological research because it can improve reproducibility of analyses and captures workflows when scripts and codes are included and shared. These findings may not be entirely unique to R because there are other programming languages used by ecologists, but they do strongly suggest that given the relatively high frequency of reported use of R, it is a significant component of contemporary analytics in the field of ecology.