modelRxiv: A Platform for the Dissemination and Interactive Display of Models

Abstract

Modelling the dynamics of biological processes is ubiquitous across the ecological and evolutionary disciplines. However, the increasing complexity of these models poses a challenge to the dissemination of model-derived results. Often only a small subset of model results are made available to the scientific community, with further exploration of the parameter space relying on local deployment of code supplied by the authors. This can be technically challenging, owing to the diversity of frameworks and environments in which models are developed. To address this issue, we developed a platform that serves as an interactive repository of biological models, called modelRxiv. To facilitate adding models to modelRxiv, we utilise large-language models (LLMs) to make the platform language-agnostic. The platform provides a unified interface for the analysis of models that do not require any technical understanding of the model implementation, thus improving the accessibility, reproducibility and validation of ecological and evolutionary models.