cito

Deep neural networks in R with ordinary formula syntax, plus the explainable-AI tools to interpret them.

Cited 9 times on Google Scholar (as of 11 October 2026)

cito fits and interprets deep neural networks in R. A network is specified with the same formula syntax as lm or glm, hyperparameters can be tuned by cross-validation in the same call, and the package helps to detect and handle convergence problems.

Predictions alone are rarely enough in ecology, so cito also provides the tools to look inside a fitted network: variable importance, partial dependence and accumulated local effect plots, and effect estimates, each optionally with confidence intervals and p-values. It is built on the R package torch, needs no Python installation, and runs on CPUs, GPUs and Mac GPUs.

Authors: Christian Amesöder, Maximilian Pichler (maintainer). Contributors: Florian Hartig, Armin Schenk.

Paper describing cito

Widely cited work citing cito

The most-cited articles that cite cito or its paper, ranked by their own citation count in OpenAlex; the group's own papers are left out.

  1. Artificial Intelligence for Climate Change Biology: From Data Collection to Predictions Ofir Levy & Shimon Shahar (2024), Integrative and Comparative Biology · 19 citations
  2. Prediction of the volume of shallow landslides due to rainfall using data-driven models Jérémie Tuganishuri et al. (2025), Natural hazards and earth system sciences · 12 citations
  3. Inferring the extinction risk of marine fish to inform global conservation priorities Nicolas Loiseau et al. (2024), PLoS Biology · 11 citations
  4. Neural Network in Aircraft Customer Satisfaction Prediction Wangbin Du (2023), Advances in Economics Management and Political Sciences · 2 citations

All 9 citing works on Google Scholar →