EnvRtype: A software to interplay enviromics and quantitative genomics in agriculture
Publicated to:G3-Genes Genomes Genetics. 11 (4): - 2021-04-01 11(4), DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkab040
Authors: Costa-Neto G; Galli G; Carvalho HF; Crossa J; Fritsche-Neto R
Affiliations
Abstract
Envirotyping is an essential technique used to unfold the nongenetic drivers associated with the phenotypic adaptation of living organisms. Here, we introduce the EnvRtype R package, a novel toolkit developed to interplay large-scale envirotyping data (enviromics) into quantitative genomics. To start a user-friendly envirotyping pipeline, this package offers: (1) remote sensing tools for collecting (get_weather and extract_GIS functions) and processing ecophysiological variables (processWTH function) from raw environmental data at single locations or worldwide; (2) environmental characterization by typing environments and profiling descriptors of environmental quality (env_typing function), in addition to gathering environmental covariables as quantitative descriptors for predictive purposes (W_matrix function); and (3) identification of environmental similarity that can be used as an enviromic-based kernel (env_typing function) in whole-genome prediction (GP), aimed at increasing ecophysiological knowledge in genomic best-unbiased predictions (GBLUP) and emulating reaction norm effects (get_kernel and kernel_model functions). We highlight literature mining concepts in fine-tuning envirotyping parameters for each plant species and target growing environments. We show that envirotyping for predictive breeding collects raw data and processes it in an eco-physiologically smart way. Examples of its use for creating global-scale envirotyping networks and integrating reaction-norm modeling in GP are also outlined. We conclude that EnvRtype provides a cost-effective envirotyping pipeline capable of providing high quality enviromic data for a diverse set of genomic-based studies, especially for increasing accuracy in GP across untested growing environments.
Keywords
Quality index
Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal G3-Genes Genomes Genetics due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2021, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Medicine (Miscellaneous).
From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations from Scopus Elsevier, it yields a value for the Field-Weighted Citation Impact from the Scopus agency: 4.01, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)
This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:
- Field Citation Ratio (FCR) from Dimensions: 23.06 (source consulted: Dimensions Jun 2025)
Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-06-01, the following number of citations:
- WoS: 12
- Scopus: 69
- OpenCitations: 68
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Brazil; Mexico; Philippines.