DigiRhythm: An R package for evaluating circadian rhythmicity in animals using the degree of functional coupling

Abstract

Studying animals’ rhythmicity provides insights into their physiological and psychological states. The degree of functional coupling (DFC) is one of the algorithms available to assess rhythmicity in activity-related time series data, such as accelerometer or GPS data. However, DFC computation is complex, as it includes frequency spectrum analysis and statistical significance testing. This paper introduces digiRhythm, an R package that makes the DFC-based rhythmicity analysis easily accessible. Beyond the DFC, the package includes an additional set of tools, which are crucial for rhythmicity investigations, such as actogram generation, daily activity visualization, and diurnality index computation.