mangal – making ecological network analysis simple |
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| Authors: | Timothée Poisot Benjamin Baiser Jennifer A. Dunne Sonia Kéfi François Massol Nicolas Mouquet Tamara N. Romanuk Daniel B. Stouffer Spencer A. Wood Dominique Gravel |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Univ. of Canterbury, School of Biological Sciences, Christchurch, New Zealand;2. Dépt de sciences biologiques, Univ. de Montréal, Pavillon Marie‐Victorin, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre‐ville, Montréal, Canada;3. Québec Centre for Biodiversity Sciences, Montréal, QC, Canada;4. Dept of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, USA;5. Sante Fe Inst., Santa Fe, USA;6. Inst. des Sciences de l'évolution, Univ. de Montpellier, CNRS, IRD, EPHE, CC065, Place Eugène Bataillon, Montpellier Cedex 05, France;7. Laboratoire Génétique et Evolution des Populations Végétales, CNRS UMR 8198, Univ. Lille 1, Villeneuve d'Ascq cedex, France;8. UMR 5175 CEFE – Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS), Montpellier Cedex 05, France;9. Dept of Biology, Dalhousie Univ., Canada;10. Natural Capital Project, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, Univ. of Washington, Seattle, USA;11. Dept of Biological Sciences, Idaho State Univ., Pocatello, USA;12. Univ. du Québec à Rimouski, Dépt de Biologie, Rimouski, Canada |
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| Abstract: | The study of ecological networks is severely limited by 1) the difficulty to access data, 2) the lack of a standardized way to link meta‐data with interactions, and 3) the disparity of formats in which ecological networks themselves are stored and represented. To overcome these limitations, we have designed a data specification for ecological networks. We implemented a database respecting this standard, and released an R package (rmangal) allowing users to programmatically access, curate, and deposit data on ecological interactions. In this article, we show how these tools, in conjunction with other frameworks for the programmatic manipulation of open ecological data, streamlines the analysis process and improves replicability and reproducibility of ecological network studies. |
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