‘R’ – The R Project for Statistical Computing
Basic statistical analyses of biodiversity datasets can be runned using Microsoft’ Excel, or IBM’ SPSS. To enable custumized output with graphics ready to publish ‘R’ is the most widely used opens source alternative. To handle ‘R’ programming skills are necessary. There is a steep learning curve, but it is worth the effort to understand the R programming language and envrionment for statistical analyses. The software is free available for download and many plug-ins, (or packages, extensions, modules) are available.
R Core Team (2014). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL //www.R-project.org/.
R-studio
R-studio free available for download (desktop version), it is a console to work more efficient with R. Combining an editor with file organisation and several integrated tools it is a very usefull program.
RStudio (2014). RStudio: Integrated development environment for R (Version 0.98.953) [Computer software]. Boston, MA. Retrieved June 6, 2014. Available from //www.rstudio.com/.