rWind: download, edit and include wind data in ecological and evolutionary analysis

Abstract

1) Wind connectivity has been identified as a key factor driving many biological processes. 2) Existing software available for managing wind data are often overly complex for studying many ecological processes and cannot be incorporated into a broad framework. 3) Here we present rWind, an R language package to download and manage surface wind data from the Global Forecasting System and to compute wind connectivity between locations. 4) Data obtained with rWind can be used in a general framework for analysis of biological processes to develop hypotheses about the role of wind in driving ecological and evolutionary patterns.