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Orangutan

Orangutan is an R package for analyzing and visualizing measurements (morphometrics) from groups such as species or populations. It runs a full analysis pipeline that summarizes data, finds variables that differentiate groups, performs multivariate and univariate statistics, and produces publication-ready plots.

Table of Contents

• What Orangutan does
• Installation
• Implementation
• Description of run_orangutan() arguments
• Input data format
• HTML Report
• Contributing / Support
• Citation

What Orangutan does

• Loads and validates your CSV data (requires a species column).

• Optionally applies allometric correction
  Adjusts mensural measurements for a user-selected variable (e.g. body size).

  • Included in downstream cleaned datasets and summaries (no standalone file)

• Optionally removes extreme outliers within species
  Uses user-specified variables and a configurable tail percentage.

  • 05_data_cleaned_outliers_removed.csv
  • 05_qc_outlier_audit_log.csv

• Computes per-species summary statistics
  Mean, SD, min, and max for all variables.

  • 06_summary_stats.csv

• Identifies variables that do not overlap between species
  Finds diagnostic traits and produces publication-ready plots.

  • 07_nonoverlaps_list.csv
  • 07_nonoverlap_plot_<species1>_vs_<species2>_<variable>.pdf

• Runs multivariate tests on the full dataset

  • Tests homogeneity of multivariate dispersion (beta-dispersion).
  • Runs PERMANOVA and flags results if dispersion assumptions are violated.
    • 08_multi_betadisper_overall_test.csv
    • 08_multi_betadisper_pairwise_tests.csv
    • 08_multi_permanova_species_effect.csv

• Performs Principal Components Analysis (PCA) on scaled variables

  • Produces a PCA scatterplot with optional group encirclement.
  • Reports variable loadings contributing to PC1 and PC2 and visualizes them natively.
    • 09_multi_pca_plot.pdf
    • 09_multi_pca_top_loadings_PC1_PC2_plot.pdf
    • 09_multi_pca_top_loadings_PC1_PC2.csv

• Runs PCA axis post-hoc tests

  • Tests PCA axes cumulatively explaining ~90% of variance.
  • Uses ANOVA + Tukey HSD when assumptions are met.
  • Falls back to Kruskal–Wallis + Dunn tests otherwise.
  • Reports significant species differences per PC axis.
    • 09_multi_pca_posthoc.csv

• Runs Discriminant Analysis of Principal Components (DAPC)

  • Produces discriminant plots.
  • Evaluates classification performance.
  • Reports misclassified individuals.
    • 10_multi_dapc_plot.pdf
    • 11_multi_dapc_confusion_matrix.csv
    • 11_multi_dapc_performance_metrics.csv
    • 11_multi_dapc_misclassified_individuals.csv

• Performs univariate tests for each variable

  • ANOVA + Tukey when parametric assumptions are met.
  • Kruskal–Wallis + Dunn when parametric assumptions fail.
  • Generates corresponding plots with significance lettering.
    • 12_uni_anova_summary.csv
    • 12_uni_anova_plot_<variable>.pdf
    • 13_uni_kruskalwallis_summary.csv
    • 13_uni_kruskalwallis_plot_<variable>.pdf

• Automatically identifies and analyzes categorical variables

  • Runs Pearson’s Chi-squared tests between categorical traits and species.
  • Uses simulated p-values for robustness with sparse data.
  • Performs FDR-corrected pairwise post-hoc tests to detect specific species-level differences.
  • Reports statistical reliability notes for small sample sizes (N < 50) or sparse cells.
  • Produces proportional stacked bar plots using distinctly muted pastel palettes structurally separated from the main species aesthetics.
    • 14_categorical_analysis_summary.csv
    • 14_categorical_percentages_summary.csv
    • 14_categorical_barplot_<variable>.pdf

• Ensures reproducibility

  • Saves all results, plots, configuration details, and methods summaries to output_dir.
    • 00_methods_summary.txt — human-readable methods summary alongside the exact R environment and call configurations.

• Generates an HTML interpretation report

  • Automatically produced at the end of every run.
  • Summarizes results in plain language with embedded plot thumbnails.
  • Covers all analysis sections: diagnostic traits, PERMANOVA, PCA, DAPC, and univariate tests.
    • orangutan_report.html

Installation

Stable version (CRAN)

Install the latest stable release from CRAN (v2.0.0):

install.packages("Orangutan")

Development version (GitHub)

Install the development version directly from GitHub (v2.1.0):

install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("metalofis/Orangutan-R")

Implementation

Quick example: run_orangutan called with default parameters (writes results next to the input file by default):

library(Orangutan)

run_orangutan("data/my_dataset.csv")

Full example: run_orangutan called with all available arguments

library(Orangutan)  # Load the Orangutan package

run_orangutan(
  # ---------- Input / output ----------
  data_path = "data/my_dataset.csv",             # Path to your input CSV dataset
  output_dir = "address/to/orangutan_outputs",   # Folder where all outputs (plots, tables) will be saved
  
  # ---------- Allometry ----------
  apply_allometry = TRUE,             # Whether to adjust measurements for allometry
  allometry_var = "SVL",              # Column used as the reference variable for allometry correction
  
  # ---------- Outlier handling ----------
  remove_outliers = TRUE,             # Whether to remove extreme values (outliers)
  outlier_vars = c("SVL"),            # Which variables to check for outliers
  outlier_tail_pct = 0.05,            # Proportion of extreme values to remove from each tail (5% here)
  
  # ---------- PCA / DAPC highlighting ----------
  species_to_encircle = c("carolinensis", "torresfundorai"), # Species to highlight on PCA/DAPC plots
  
  # ---------- Color palette ----------
  palette_name = "Paired",            # Name of the color palette for plots ("Paired", "Set3", "Dark2")
  custom_colors = c(SpeciesA = "#FF0000", SpeciesB = "#00FF00"), # Optional: custom hex codes for specific species
  
  # ---------- Point aesthetics ----------
  point_aes = list(
    point_size    = 3.5,              # Size of each individual point
    jitter_width  = 0.1,              # Horizontal jitter to prevent overplotting
    jitter_alpha  = 0.8,              # Transparency of points
    jitter_shape  = 21,               # Shape of the points (21 = filled circle with border)
    jitter_color  = "black",          # Border color of points
    jitter_stroke = 0.35              # Thickness of the point border
  ),
  
  # ---------- Mean point aesthetics ----------
  mean_aes = list(
    size   = 1.8,                      # Size of the mean point
    shape  = 21,                       # Shape of the mean point
    fill   = "white",                  # Fill color of the mean point
    color  = "black",                  # Border color of the mean point
    stroke = 0.6                       # Thickness of the mean point border
  ),
  
  # ---------- Violin aesthetics ----------
  violin_aes = list(
    alpha = 0.4                         # Transparency of violin plots
  ),
  
  # ---------- Boxplot aesthetics ----------
  box_aes = list(
    alpha = 0.4,                        # Transparency of boxplots
    width = 0.15                        # Width of boxplots
  ),
  
  # ---------- Label / text control ----------
  label_aes = list(
    text_size      = 6,                 # Size of text labels on plots
    axis_text_size = 10,                # Size of axis tick labels
    title_size     = 12,                # Size of plot titles
    label_offset   = 0.05               # Distance of labels from points
  ),
  
  # ---------- Optional label templates ----------
  label_templates = list(
    nonoverlap_title = "Non-Overlapping Pair: %s vs %s for %s", # Title template for non-overlapping variable plots
    pca_x = "PC1 (%s%% variance)",       # Label for PCA X-axis with explained variance
    pca_y = "PC2 (%s%% variance)",       # Label for PCA Y-axis with explained variance
    dapc_x = "LD1 (%s%%)",               # Label for DAPC X-axis with explained variance
    dapc_y = "LD2 (%s%%)",               # Label for DAPC Y-axis with explained variance
    dapc_title_1d = "DAPC – Single Discriminant Axis" # Title for one-dimensional DAPC plots
  ),
  
  # ---------- Multivariate test seeds ----------
  seeds = list(betadisper = 123, permanova = 456),   # Seed for reproducible dispersion/randomization calculations and permutation tests
  
  # ---------- Messaging ----------
  verbose = FALSE                                    # Whether to print progress messages in console
)

Description of run_orangutan() arguments

• data_path: Path to your CSV file (required).
• output_dir: Where results are saved (default: folder next to the input file).
• apply_allometry: TRUE/FALSE — adjust measurements by a size variable.
• allometry_var: Variable used as the size reference for allometric correction (required if apply_allometry = TRUE).
• remove_outliers: TRUE/FALSE — whether to remove outliers by species.
• outlier_vars: Variable(s) used to detect outliers (required if remove_outliers = TRUE).
• outlier_tail_pct: How extreme to consider for outliers (default 0.05 = 5% tail).
• species_to_encircle: Species names to highlight (draw polygons) in PCA/DAPC plots.
• palette_name: RColorBrewer palette to use for colors (default “Paired”).
• custom_colors: Optional named vector of hex codes for species (e.g., c(SpeciesA = "#FF0000")).
• seeds: Named list of seeds for reproducible random steps (default: list(betadisper = 123, permanova = 456)).
• label_templates: Optional list to tweak plot labels and titles (sprintf-style templates).
• point_aes, mean_aes, violin_aes, box_aes, label_aes: Lists to customize plot appearance (see Plot customization below).

Input data format

• A CSV with a species column and one or more numeric measurement columns.

HTML Report

Every run automatically produces orangutan_report.html inside output_dir. Open it in any web browser to get a plain-language summary of all analysis sections, with embedded thumbnail images of the key plots. No extra arguments are needed — the report is generated by default.

Contributing / Support

• Open issues or pull requests on the project GitHub for bugs, feature requests, or improvements.
• Add a star if this package was useful.

Citation

Torres, J. (2026). Orangutan: An R Package for Analyzing and Visualizing Phenotypic Data in the Context of Species Descriptions and Population Comparisons. Ecology and Evolution, 16(2), e73111. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.73111

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
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