Abstract
Modeling the dynamics of biological processes is ubiquitous across the ecological and evolutionary disciplines. However, the increasing complexity of these models poses a significant challenge to the dissemination of model-derived results. With the existing standards of scientific publishing, most often only a small subset of model results are generated, presented in static figures or tables, and made available to the scientific community. Further exploration of the parameter space of a model, investigation of possible variations of a model, and validation of the results in relation to model assumptions commonly rely on local deployment of code supplied by the authors. While releasing model code is a publication requirement for most scientific journals, there are currently no standardized protocols or coding-language requirements. Deploying models locally poses a technical challenge due to the specific framework and environment in which a model was developed, and can preclude model validation and exploration by readers and reviewers. To address this issue, we developed a platform that serves as an interactive repository of biological models, called modelRxiv (https://modelrxiv.org). The platform provides a unified interface for the analysis of models developed in multiple programming languages but does not require any technical understanding of the model implementation. To reduce model computation time, the platform allows users to pool computational resources available to them, including lab workstations, clusters and cloud services. By making published models accessible, this platform promises to significantly improve the accessibility, reproducibility and validation of ecological and evolutionary models.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
