RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 mangal – making complex ecological network analysis simpler JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 002634 DO 10.1101/002634 A1 Timothée Poisot A1 Benjamin Baiser A1 Jennifer A. Dunne A1 Sonia Kéfi A1 François Massol A1 Nicolas Mouquet A1 Tamara N. Romanuk A1 Daniel B. Stouffer A1 Spencer A. Wood A1 Dominique Gravel YR 2014 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/02/12/002634.abstract AB The study of ecological networks is severely limited by (i) the difficulty to access data, (ii) the lack of a standardized way to link meta-data with interactions, and (iii) the disparity of formats in which ecological networks themselves are represented. To overcome these limitations, we conceived a data specification for ecological networks. We implemented a database respecting this standard, and released a R package (rmangal) allowing users to programmatically access, curate, and deposit data on ecological interactions. In this article, we show how these tools, in conjunctions with other frameworks for the programmatic manipulation of open ecological data, streamlines the analysis process, and improves eplicability and reproducibility of ecological networks studies.