Dataset Information

The taxlist package: managing plant taxonomic lists in R.

ABSTRACT: Taxonomic lists are crucial elements of vegetation-plot databases and provide the links between original entries, reference taxon views and different taxon concepts. We introduce the R package taxlist in the context of object-oriented modelling for taxonomic lists. This package provides a data structure based on species lists in Turboveg, which is a software broadly used for the storage of vegetation-plot databases and implements functions for importing and handling them prior to statistical analysis. We also present a schema for relational databases, compatible with taxlist objects and recommend its use for handling diversity records.

SUBMITTER: Alvarez M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5943443 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The taxlist package: managing plant taxonomic lists in R.

Alvarez Miguel M Luebert Federico F

Biodiversity data journal 20180502 6

Taxonomic lists are crucial elements of vegetation-plot databases and provide the links between original entries, reference taxon views and different taxon concepts. We introduce the R package <i>taxlist</i> in the context of object-oriented modelling for taxonomic lists. This package provides a data structure based on species lists in Turboveg, which is a software broadly used for the storage of vegetation-plot databases and implements functions for importing and handling them prior to statisti ...[more]

PMID: 29750074

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Project description:BackgroundIn microarray studies researchers are often interested in the comparison of relevant quantities between two or more similar experiments, involving different treatments, tissues, or species. Typically each experiment reports measures of significance (e.g. p-values) or other measures that rank its features (e.g genes). Our objective is to find a list of features that are significant in all experiments, to be further investigated. In this paper we present an R package called sdef, that allows the user to quantify the evidence of communality between the experiments using previously proposed statistical methods based on the ranked lists of p-values. sdef implements two approaches that address this objective: the first is a permutation test of the maximal ratio of observed to expected common features under the hypothesis of independence between the experiments. The second approach, set in a Bayesian framework, is more flexible as it takes into account the uncertainty on the number of genes differentially expressed in each experiment.ResultsWe used sdef to re-analyze publicly available data i) on Type 2 diabetes susceptibility in mice on liver and skeletal muscle (two experiments); ii) on molecular similarities between mammalian sexes (three experiments). For the first example, we found between 68 and 104 genes commonly perturbed between the two tissues, using the two methods described above, and enrichment of the inflammation pathways, which are related to obesity and diabetes. For the second example, looking at three lists of features, we found 110 genes commonly perturbed between the three tissues, using the same two methods, and enrichment on genes involved in cell development.Conclusionssdef is an R package that provides researchers with an easy and powerful methodology to find lists of features commonly perturbed in two or more experiments to be further investigated. The package is provided with plots and tables to help the user visualize and interpret the results. The Windows, Linux and MacOS versions of the package, together with the documentation are available on the website http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/sdef/index.html.

Project description:BackgroundHigh-throughput sequencing of phylogenetically informative marker genes is a widely used method to assess the diversity and composition of microbial communities. Taxonomic assignment of sampled marker gene sequences (referred to as amplicon sequence variants, or ASVs) imparts ecological significance to these genetic data. To assign taxonomy to an ASV, a taxonomic assignment algorithm compares the ASV to a collection of reference sequences (a reference database) with known taxonomic affiliations. However, many taxonomic assignment algorithms and reference databases are available, and the optimal algorithm and database for a particular scientific question is often unclear. Here, we present the ensembleTax R package, which provides an efficient framework for integrating taxonomic assignments predicted with any number of taxonomic assignment algorithms and reference databases to determine ensemble taxonomic assignments for ASVs.MethodsThe ensembleTax R package relies on two core algorithms: taxmapper and assign.ensembleTax. The taxmapper algorithm maps taxonomic assignments derived from one reference database onto the taxonomic nomenclature (a set of taxonomic naming and ranking conventions) of another reference database. The assign.ensembleTax algorithm computes ensemble taxonomic assignments for each ASV in a data set based on any number of taxonomic assignments determined with independent methods. Various parameters allow analysts to prioritize obtaining either more ASVs with more predicted clade names or more robust clade name predictions supported by multiple independent methods in ensemble taxonomic assignments.ResultsThe ensembleTax R package is used to compute two sets of ensemble taxonomic assignments for a collection of protistan ASVs sampled from the coastal ocean. Comparisons of taxonomic assignments predicted by individual methods with those predicted by ensemble methods show that conservative implementations of the ensembleTax package minimize disagreements between taxonomic assignments predicted by individual and ensemble methods, but result in ASVs with fewer ranks assigned taxonomy. Less conservative implementations of the ensembleTax package result in an increased fraction of ASVs classified at all taxonomic ranks, but increase the number of ASVs for which ensemble assignments disagree with those predicted by individual methods.DiscussionWe discuss how implementation of the ensembleTax R package may be optimized to address specific scientific objectives based on the results of the application of the ensembleTax package to marine protist communities. While further work is required to evaluate the accuracy of ensemble taxonomic assignments relative to taxonomic assignments predicted by individual methods, we also discuss scenarios where ensemble methods are expected to improve the accuracy of taxonomy prediction for ASVs.

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The taxlist package: managing plant taxonomic lists in R.

Publications

The taxlist package: managing plant taxonomic lists in R.

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