ArticlePLoS biology2020
Low availability of code in ecology: A call for urgent action.
Article in PLoS biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 37 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Prevalence and predictors of data and code sharing in the medical and health sciences: systematic review with meta-analysis of individual participant data.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2023Pooled it
- A meta-evaluation of the quality of reporting and execution in ecological meta-analyses.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- Quantifying research waste in ecology.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Pooled it
- Article
- Exploring open science in applied ethology: practice and attitudes among researchers.BMC research notes · 2026Article
- Harnessing meta-analyses' insights in ecology and evolution research.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- From policy to practice: progress towards data- and code-sharing in ecology and evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Open science interventions to improve reproducibility and replicability of research: a scoping review.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Article
- Poor hypotheses and research waste in biology: learning from a theory crisis in psychology.BMC biology · 2025Review
- Ten quick tips to build a Model Life Cycle.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- How will we prepare for an uncertain future? The value of open data and code for unborn generations facing climate change.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Guidance framework to apply best practices in ecological data analysis: lessons learned from building Galaxy-Ecology.GigaScience · 2025Article
- Article
- Advances and challenges in ecological connectivity science.Ecology and evolution · 2024Review
- Supporting study registration to reduce research waste.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Review
- Code sharing in ecology and evolution increases citation rates but remains uncommon.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Measuring transparency in the social sciences: political science and international relations.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Harnessing open science practices to teach ecology and evolutionary biology using interactive tutorials.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Computationally reproducing results from meta-analyses in ecology and evolutionary biology using shared code and data.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Access to analytical code is essential for transparent and reproducible research. We review the state of code availability in ecology using a random sample of 346 nonmolecular articles published between 2015 and 2019 under mandatory or encouraged code-sharing policies. Our results call for urgent action to increase code availability: only 27% of eligible articles were accompanied by code. In contrast, data were available for 79% of eligible articles, highlighting that code availability is an important limiting factor for computational reproducibility in ecology. Although the percentage of ecological journals with mandatory or encouraged code-sharing policies has increased considerably, from 15% in 2015 to 75% in 2020, our results show that code-sharing policies are not adhered to by most authors. We hope these results will encourage journals, institutions, funding agencies, and researchers to address this alarming situation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.