A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With Shiny

ABSTRACT There is a large and growing number of trait databases in ecology and evolution. Structured and open‐access data repositories are important resources for allowing researchers to explore, visualize, and download such data for analysis. In this paper, we detail the design and structure of a s...

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Main Authors: Kiran Basava, Cristian Román‐Palacios
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2025-08-01
Series:Ecology and Evolution
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71913
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author Kiran Basava
Cristian Román‐Palacios
author_facet Kiran Basava
Cristian Román‐Palacios
author_sort Kiran Basava
collection DOAJ
description ABSTRACT There is a large and growing number of trait databases in ecology and evolution. Structured and open‐access data repositories are important resources for allowing researchers to explore, visualize, and download such data for analysis. In this paper, we detail the design and structure of a simple Shiny web app intended to deploy trait databases as interactive web platforms. Using the Animal Culture Database (ACDB) as a case study, we highlight the web app's functionality and potential transversal applications for research and deploying other databases. The ACDB is a resource compiling socially transmitted traditions across the animal tree of life. It integrates multiple linked tables with explicit geospatial information, enabling data visualization and analysis of cultural behaviors across diverse taxa. The web app, accessible at https://datadiversitylab.github.io/ACDB/, provides users with an intuitive interface to explore the latest version of the database, including population‐level data, behavioral descriptions, and geographic distributions. The code to deploy this web app, and a simplified version to deploy a basic template version, are available on the GitHub repositories https://github.com/datadiversitylab/ACDB and https://github.com/datadiversitylab/generic_shiny_data respectively.
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spelling doaj-art-b63f5fcc61e648de90773a94d7be85462025-08-20T06:50:35ZengWileyEcology and Evolution2045-77582025-08-01158n/an/a10.1002/ece3.71913A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With ShinyKiran Basava0Cristian Román‐Palacios1College of Information Science University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USACollege of Information Science University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USAABSTRACT There is a large and growing number of trait databases in ecology and evolution. Structured and open‐access data repositories are important resources for allowing researchers to explore, visualize, and download such data for analysis. In this paper, we detail the design and structure of a simple Shiny web app intended to deploy trait databases as interactive web platforms. Using the Animal Culture Database (ACDB) as a case study, we highlight the web app's functionality and potential transversal applications for research and deploying other databases. The ACDB is a resource compiling socially transmitted traditions across the animal tree of life. It integrates multiple linked tables with explicit geospatial information, enabling data visualization and analysis of cultural behaviors across diverse taxa. The web app, accessible at https://datadiversitylab.github.io/ACDB/, provides users with an intuitive interface to explore the latest version of the database, including population‐level data, behavioral descriptions, and geographic distributions. The code to deploy this web app, and a simplified version to deploy a basic template version, are available on the GitHub repositories https://github.com/datadiversitylab/ACDB and https://github.com/datadiversitylab/generic_shiny_data respectively.https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71913databaseopen sourceShinytemplate
spellingShingle Kiran Basava
Cristian Román‐Palacios
A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With Shiny
Ecology and Evolution
database
open source
Shiny
template
title A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With Shiny
title_full A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With Shiny
title_fullStr A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With Shiny
title_full_unstemmed A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With Shiny
title_short A Web App for the Animal Culture Database and a Template for Deploying Comparative Trait Databases With Shiny
title_sort web app for the animal culture database and a template for deploying comparative trait databases with shiny
topic database
open source
Shiny
template
url https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71913
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