EvoPhylo
EvoPhylo added BEAST2 alongside MrBayes, then went quiet for two years.
Comparison · Analytics
biocro vs pecan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of biocro and pecan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
biocro vs pecan: at a glance
What is biocro?
BioCro swapped an unstable iteration for real root finders, changing what its crop models compute.
BioCro is a C++ crop growth simulator with an R interface, built from swappable modules for photosynthesis, respiration and development. Version 3.3.0 added multidimensional and one-dimensional root finders to the C++ source and put them to work immediately, replacing the fixed-point iteration used for intercellular CO2 with a Dekker root finder on the grounds that fixed-point iteration is known to be unstable there. Getting to that release also required moving from C++11 to C++17 and updating the bundled boost from 1.71 to 1.89.
What is pecan?
PEcAn v1.10 makes land-management events a first-class input and parallelises the whole SDA workflow
PEcAn is a workflow framework for ecosystem modelling — it standardises meteorological and initial-condition inputs, drives a set of coupled process models such as SIPNET, ED2, BioCro and LDNDC, and runs uncertainty analysis and state data assimilation over the results. Version 1.10.0 adds an events schema with validation and a SIPNET writer, so disturbance and management events can be declared in JSON and turned into model input, and runs the entire SDA workflow in parallel. It also adds CH4 and N2O to the standard variable table and an AmeriFlux meteorological ensemble path with ERA5 fallback.
biocro vs pecan: editorial side-by-side
biocro
0.0ANALYTICS
BioCro swapped an unstable iteration for real root finders, changing what its crop models compute.
◆ Current state
BioCro is a C++ crop growth simulator with an R interface, built from swappable modules for photosynthesis, respiration and development. Version 3.3.0 added multidimensional and one-dimensional root finders to the C++ source and put them to work immediately, replacing the fixed-point iteration used for intercellular CO2 with a Dekker root finder on the grounds that fixed-point iteration is known to be unstable there. Getting to that release also required moving from C++11 to C++17 and updating the bundled boost from 1.71 to 1.89.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run together: the biology is being broken into finer interchangeable modules — separate maintenance respiration, alternative linear and logistic SLA methods, a direct development-index module — while the numerics underneath are being made solvable in general. The root finders are explicitly staged to move into the shared biocro/framework repository, so this is groundwork for other models rather than for this package alone.
◆ Prediction
More module-level alternatives that depend on simultaneous-equation solutions are the natural follow-on, and the root finders should migrate out to biocro/framework as the notes state.
pecan
0.0ANALYTICS
PEcAn v1.10 makes land-management events a first-class input and parallelises the whole SDA workflow
◆ Current state
PEcAn is a workflow framework for ecosystem modelling — it standardises meteorological and initial-condition inputs, drives a set of coupled process models such as SIPNET, ED2, BioCro and LDNDC, and runs uncertainty analysis and state data assimilation over the results. Version 1.10.0 adds an events schema with validation and a SIPNET writer, so disturbance and management events can be declared in JSON and turned into model input, and runs the entire SDA workflow in parallel. It also adds CH4 and N2O to the standard variable table and an AmeriFlux meteorological ensemble path with ERA5 fallback.
◆ Where it's heading
Two directions are visible. The framework keeps widening what it can represent — more standard variables, more carbon pools in BADM-based initial conditions, more coupled models — and it keeps industrialising the parts that used to be manual, from automated package documentation to qsub job-array expansion to parallel assimilation. The events schema is the first of these that gives users a declarative input format rather than a function to call, which is a different kind of extension than adding another model coupling.
◆ Prediction
The events schema currently has one model writer, for SIPNET, so the obvious next step is writers for the other coupled models — otherwise the format only benefits a single backend of the several PEcAn drives.
Alternatives to biocro and pecan
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either biocro or pecan.
treespace
treespace ships once every year or two, and only when CRAN or a user forces it.
Rpath
Rpath 1.1.0 learns to read Ecopath's own files, easing migration off the desktop tool.
TAF
TAF keeps turning ICES stock assessments into reproducible, dependency-pinned projects.
parallelDist
parallelDist is in pure preservation mode — one build fix every few years.
cairo
Cairo finally catches R's graphics engine, all the way to GE API 16.
See all biocro alternatives → · See all pecan alternatives →
Recent activity from biocro and pecan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 6mo agobiocroCompiler warning blocking Linux builds fixed
- 7mo agopecanEvents schema, parallel SDA workflow, CH4 and N2O standard variables ⚡
- 8mo agobiocroC++ root finders added; Ci calculation moved off fixed-point iteration ⚡
- 1y agopecanAutomated pkgdown docs for all packages; qsub job-array support
- 1y agopecanLDNDC coupling, soilgrids carbon extraction, SDA observation prep
- 1y agobiocroMaintenance respiration module; SLA split into swappable methods
- 1y agopecanPFT-specific sensitivity analysis and BioCro 1.0 support
- 1y agopecanBioCro output renamed to PEcAn standard names; RCE fix
- 1y agopecanPEcAn.utils namespace cleanup; deprecated model2netcdf removed
- 2y agobiocroFirst CRAN-accepted release after a 20 MB to 5 MB cut
- 2y agobiocroDESCRIPTION date refreshed for CRAN submission
- 2y agobiocroCI workflow debugging tag, not a release
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between biocro and pecan?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. biocro and pecan are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is biocro better than pecan?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. biocro and pecan are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to biocro?
Top biocro alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "biocro alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/biocro-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to pecan?
Top pecan alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "pecan alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/pecan-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.