Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-25-2026
Abstract
Analysing large population genomic datasets requires an interdisciplinary skillset. Beyond a knowledge base in genetics and population biology, population genomic analyses involve computer science and statistics, representing a barrier for researchers without experience in those fields. PopGenHelpR seeks to lower this barrier by enabling researchers to perform population genomic analyses and generate near-publication quality figures in a streamlined and informed fashion. PopGenHelpR allows users to estimate genetic diversity within populations as well as differentiation among populations and individuals from single nucleotide polymorphism data. PopGenHelpR includes commonly used measures such as observed heterozygosity and FST. PopGenHelpR also provides five previously unavailable measures of heterozygosity, including the proportion of heterozygous loci and homozygosity by locus. Additionally, PopGenHelpR integrates widely used visualization tools in population genomics that normally require additional software packages, such as ancestry bar charts, piechart maps, and genetic differentiation heatmaps. Moreover, PopGenHelpR is minimally dependent on other R packages, reducing its chance of being removed from public networks. The PopGenHelpR website also provides tutorials and educational resources. Altogether, PopGenHelpR provides resources for informed analyses and effective visualization, making PopGenHelpR a valuable tool for many researchers. PopGenHelpR is available on the Comprehensive R Archive Network and GitHub (https://github.com/kfarleigh/PopGenHelpR).
Comments
This article was originally published in Molecular Ecology Resources, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.70142
This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).