Exploring an R package to analyse the structure of ecological networks: econullnetr

• Main Authors: Zulhakimi, Muhammad, Bahaludin, Hafizah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IIUM Press 2022
• Subjects: QA Mathematics
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/105471/1/105471_Exploring%20an%20R%20package.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/105471/; https://journals.iium.edu.my/ijahs/index.php/IJAHS/issue/view/26
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

An ecological network is a network that exhibits the ecological interaction between species. Ecological networks rely heavily on network analysis to determine which nodes (species) interact with each other and how strong those interactions are. Typically, the R package assists the researcher in analysing and visualizing the ecological network. However, the ecology network package known as enaR is incompatible with the current version of R. Thus, this study aims to explore the current package of econullnetr to construct the ecological network and demonstrate in detail how to utilize this package. Based on econullnetr package, the null model is computed before we construct the ecological network. The dataset from the food web in Broadstone Stream, United Kingdom, was used to illustrate how we utilize the package. This study presents the procedures, the functions of the package along with the results obtained. The usage of econullnetr, which includes functions for null modelling and interpretation of a variety of networks, will be advantageous to the researcher.