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-1,056

top h-index · Escherichia coli

650,310

most viewed · Helicobacter pylori

164.83×

fastest-rising · Akkermansia muciniphila

428

taxa tracked · 3 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-1,056. 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	983,438	350,187	37%	1,056	3,166,243	604,042	2.4×
2	Staphylococcus aureus	396,020	159,948	48%	709	1,204,252	438,906	4.07×
3	Pseudomonas aeruginosa	237,381	87,400	51%	625	960,356	318,918	4.32×
4	Mycobacterium tuberculosis	205,672	64,235	46%	606	960,420	222,785	2.62×
5	Helicobacter pylori	119,082	53,670	47%	536	824,421	650,310	2.67×
6	Listeria monocytogenes	73,099	26,601	48%	526	740,023	106,668	2.77×
7	Bacillus subtilis	130,869	44,079	44%	515	743,356	191,274	3.22×
8	Streptococcus pneumoniae	105,273	31,785	47%	488	692,176	172,604	2.67×
9	Klebsiella pneumoniae	113,958	38,974	59%	469	668,348	150,749	7.54×
10	Salmonella enterica	66,972	20,249	53%	465	654,604	70,053	2.44×
11	Streptococcus pyogenes	53,384	10,623	47%	422	621,049	176,484	3.4×
12	Vibrio cholerae	41,900	12,486	43%	416	538,602	109,823	2.01×
13	Enterococcus faecalis	66,732	17,680	58%	407	516,882	166,448	5.66×
14	Neisseria meningitidis	37,717	10,280	41%	359	478,143	127,130	1.88×
15	Staphylococcus epidermidis	51,242	14,562	55%	353	419,586	99,904	4.52×
16	Campylobacter jejuni	31,003	10,461	50%	347	423,442	72,320	2.39×
17	Neisseria gonorrhoeae	36,498	12,845	35%	341	421,190	111,831	2.69×
18	Acinetobacter baumannii	49,145	17,956	66%	339	427,725	95,139	9.17×
19	Bordetella pertussis	38,353	6,701	47%	334	406,660	54,771	3.02×
20	Legionella pneumophila	23,246	7,097	48%	330	396,360	54,059	1.89×
21	Bacillus cereus	42,116	13,422	53%	327	379,225	138,835	4.25×
22	Yersinia pestis	24,253	4,398	50%	325	386,879	461,467	1.47×
23	Enterococcus faecium	34,722	9,665	63%	322	373,545	51,908	7.07×
24	Proteus mirabilis	30,710	7,128	52%	307	350,726	112,303	5.11×
25	Bifidobacterium longum	14,994	3,157	74%	304	324,193	38,903	11.14×
26	Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron	8,494	1,357	65%	302	342,968	14,939	7.29×
27	Akkermansia muciniphila	14,816	2,565	83%	292	309,073	62,994	164.83×
28	Streptococcus agalactiae	28,430	5,594	47%	268	289,065	91,756	3.7×
29	Clostridioides difficile	27,075	6,825	51%	262	258,729	80,278	7.28×
30	Citrobacter freundii	13,801	2,778	55%	240	238,894	43,211	4.37×
31	Vibrio parahaemolyticus	14,747	6,372	46%	238	264,097	22,515	4.2×
32	Phocaeicola vulgatus	3,363	120	74%	179	146,211	26,228	22.36×
33	Bacteroides uniformis	4,264	420	73%	177	158,279	4,120	11.8×
34	Brucella melitensis	7,505	2,651	44%	172	131,865	12,378	2.72×
35	Parabacteroides distasonis	3,071	374	82%	170	118,292	4,387	24.5×
36	Campylobacter coli	5,455	2,095	42%	167	135,862	8,590	1.85×
37	Streptococcus suis	6,908	2,792	60%	162	140,116	10,212	3.47×
38	Mycobacterium abscessus	6,718	2,998	58%	157	114,365	2,731	7.25×
39	Wolbachia pipientis	1,572	520	62%	127	76,108	1,379	1.91×
40	Lactiplantibacillus plantarum	11,465	3,863	53%	122	81,164	45,901	16.93×
41	Burkholderia mallei	1,904	495	56%	118	72,182	19,379	0.81×
42	Bacillus velezensis	4,358	1,951	69%	93	47,530	1	57.88×
43	Enterobacter hormaechei	2,363	616	75%	89	44,477	1	30×
44	Klebsiella variicola	1,636	357	80%	84	37,368	11,046	57.25×
45	Klebsiella quasipneumoniae	778	218	80%	58	15,488	4	51.33×
46	Muribaculum gordoncarteri	51	10	86%	7	462	—	23×
47	Lepagella muris	12	0	92%	4	273	—	1×
48	Sarcina perfringens	11	2	82%	3	38	—	1×
49	Enterobacter intestinihominis	6	3	67%	2	30	—	1×
50	Aquipseudomonas viridiflava	0	0	—	0	0	—	—

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 (202506–202606) · 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 2026-06-25

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