SeqDesk · original analysis

Which microbes the literature studies most

The literature h-index of a taxon — and how many papers, reviews and open-access works each microbe draws.

Most-studied Most-viewed Fastest-rising

h-1,096

top h-index · Escherichia coli

641,098

most viewed · Helicobacter pylori

178.12×

fastest-rising · Akkermansia muciniphila

1905

taxa tracked · 6 ranks

The h-index of a bug: just as an author has one, so does a taxon — the largest number h such that Escherichia’s literature has h papers each cited at least h times. Escherichia coli leads at h-1,096. A “+” means the true value exceeds what we paged to.

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Distribution of h-index across 50 taxa

Studied vs sequenced — genomes (x) against papers (y), both log

#	Taxon	Papers	Title/abs	OA	h-index	Citations	Wiki/yr	Trend
1	Escherichia coli	1,019,027	354,837	37%	1,096	3,367,405	520,653	2.43×
2	Staphylococcus aureus	410,959	163,459	48%	739	1,284,052	387,832	4.13×
3	Pseudomonas aeruginosa	247,415	89,234	51%	648	1,033,632	280,752	4.42×
4	Mycobacterium tuberculosis	211,735	65,297	47%	631	1,031,100	201,383	2.69×
5	Helicobacter pylori	122,701	54,399	47%	560	876,829	641,098	2.71×
6	Listeria monocytogenes	75,683	26,967	48%	547	785,502	93,083	2.84×
7	Bacillus subtilis	137,387	44,757	44%	539	794,844	221,552	3.28×
8	Streptococcus pneumoniae	108,462	32,149	48%	504	737,224	151,826	2.74×
9	Klebsiella pneumoniae	119,593	40,381	59%	490	718,783	122,931	7.7×
10	Salmonella enterica	68,570	20,625	54%	483	697,872	63,543	2.5×
11	Streptococcus pyogenes	55,124	10,780	47%	439	657,007	160,704	3.5×
12	Vibrio cholerae	43,634	12,622	42%	432	571,853	100,367	2.09×
13	Enterococcus faecalis	69,055	18,103	59%	422	554,602	148,495	5.82×
14	Staphylococcus epidermidis	53,418	14,837	55%	372	450,463	91,622	4.6×
15	Neisseria meningitidis	39,154	10,359	40%	371	511,145	116,345	1.93×
16	Campylobacter jejuni	32,055	10,568	50%	366	454,388	65,212	2.49×
17	Acinetobacter baumannii	51,623	18,685	67%	356	466,464	82,448	9.3×
18	Neisseria gonorrhoeae	39,076	13,039	34%	355	454,740	102,243	2.75×
19	Bordetella pertussis	39,848	6,774	47%	346	432,847	49,105	3.14×
20	Bacillus cereus	44,034	13,657	53%	343	409,630	133,459	4.31×
21	Legionella pneumophila	24,276	7,183	47%	342	420,098	49,525	1.94×
22	Enterococcus faecium	36,230	9,919	64%	339	406,254	45,756	7.26×
23	Yersinia pestis	24,802	4,440	50%	334	408,850	430,028	1.53×
24	Proteus mirabilis	32,109	7,285	52%	321	378,283	100,433	5.28×
25	Bifidobacterium longum	15,837	3,253	75%	318	352,176	36,282	11.43×
26	Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron	8,955	1,407	66%	315	366,253	14,395	8.04×
27	Akkermansia muciniphila	16,274	2,773	84%	309	344,532	62,337	178.12×
28	Streptococcus agalactiae	29,364	5,711	48%	276	307,587	75,956	3.8×
29	Clostridioides difficile	28,525	7,213	52%	273	278,847	79,937	7.39×
30	Citrobacter freundii	14,422	2,821	55%	249	256,394	38,719	4.51×
31	Vibrio parahaemolyticus	15,485	6,501	46%	247	285,994	20,074	4.24×
32	Phocaeicola vulgatus	3,628	139	75%	188	159,751	18,700	22.38×
33	Bacteroides uniformis	4,537	450	74%	187	171,250	5,086	13.22×
34	Parabacteroides distasonis	3,300	391	83%	178	131,258	4,757	27.65×
35	Brucella melitensis	7,871	2,706	44%	176	139,467	11,705	2.84×
36	Campylobacter coli	5,696	2,121	41%	175	144,939	7,382	1.9×
37	Streptococcus suis	7,231	2,854	59%	169	148,587	10,077	3.54×
38	Mycobacterium abscessus	7,048	3,119	59%	163	123,877	2,362	7.29×
39	Wolbachia pipientis	1,620	529	62%	133	80,824	1,579	2.04×
40	Lactiplantibacillus plantarum	12,468	4,276	55%	130	89,901	43,880	17.17×
41	Burkholderia mallei	1,927	498	57%	122	75,898	18,589	0.88×
42	Bacillus velezensis	4,758	2,099	69%	104	54,192	1	58.75×
43	Enterobacter hormaechei	2,544	663	76%	93	49,740	3,261	30.64×
44	Klebsiella variicola	1,767	383	80%	88	42,713	10,291	57.25×
45	Klebsiella quasipneumoniae	846	234	80%	63	18,347	6	51.67×
46	Muribaculum gordoncarteri	76	14	88%	11	825	—	23×
47	Lepagella muris	14	1	93%	5	565	—	1×
48	Sarcina perfringens	12	2	92%	5	79	—	1×
49	Enterobacter intestinihominis	10	3	80%	3	44	—	1×
50	Aquipseudomonas viridiflava	0	0	—	0	0	—	—

Cohort attention over time

How this is tracked

Cohortphylum/class/order in full; top-by-genome species & genera; top 50 species & genera by GTDB genome count. Higher ranks fill in over repeated runs

PapersEurope PMC hitCount (name anywhere; phyla OR-in legacy synonym); Europe PMC TITLE_ABS: (papers about the taxon)

h-indexlargest k with k papers cited ≥ k (capped at 4000 papers)

Open accessEurope PMC OPEN_ACCESS:y count; oaShare = openAccess/papers

Pageviewsen.wikipedia trailing 12 months (202511–202611) · the legitimate stand-in for the un-queryable “Google count”

Trendpapers in anchor years 2010/2015/2020/2025; growth = newest/oldest-nonzero

Methodscripts/check-taxon-popularity.mjs · open JSON at /api/taxon-popularity · snapshot 2026-11-09

Attention is not importance, and name-matching counts carry homonym noise (mitigated for renamed phyla) — read these as a rough map of where the field’s effort and the public’s curiosity land. Aggregate counts only. · back to all research data