GasanalyzeR: Advancing Reproducible Research using a New R Package for Photosynthesis Data Workflows

Abstract

The analysis of photosynthetic traits has become an integral part of plant (eco-)physiology. Many of these characteristics are not directly measured, but calculated from combinations of several, more direct, measurements. The calculations of such derived variables are based on on underlying physical models and may use additional constants or assumed values. Commercially-available gas-exchange instruments typically report such derived variables, but the available implementations use different definitions and assumptions. Moreover, no software is currently available to allow a fully scripted and reproducible workflow that includes importing data, preprocessing and recalculating derived quantities. The R package gasanalyzer aims to address these issues by providing methods to import data from different instruments, by translating photosynthetic variables to a standardized nomenclature, and by optionally recalculating derived quantities using standardized equations. In addition, the package facilitates performing sensitivity analyses on variables or assumptions used in the calculations to allow researchers to better assess the robustness of the results. The use of the package and how to perform sensitivity analyses is demonstrated using three different examples.