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-1,091

top h-index · Escherichia coli

646,118

most viewed · Helicobacter pylori

166.56×

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-1,091. 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	1,006,009	352,971	37%	1,091	3,337,294	560,900	2.4×
2	Staphylococcus aureus	403,470	162,129	47%	735	1,268,636	409,872	4.09×
3	Pseudomonas aeruginosa	242,788	88,540	50%	645	1,022,241	300,887	4.33×
4	Mycobacterium tuberculosis	208,768	64,843	46%	628	1,014,485	211,712	2.65×
5	Helicobacter pylori	120,785	54,099	46%	557	868,260	646,118	2.68×
6	Listeria monocytogenes	74,578	26,819	48%	545	779,266	98,120	2.78×
7	Bacillus subtilis	135,774	44,461	44%	537	789,090	221,894	3.23×
8	Streptococcus pneumoniae	106,829	31,988	47%	502	728,950	160,527	2.7×
9	Klebsiella pneumoniae	116,483	39,830	58%	488	710,643	134,112	7.56×
10	Salmonella enterica	67,561	20,467	53%	482	690,003	67,102	2.44×
11	Streptococcus pyogenes	54,290	10,716	46%	438	650,630	165,664	3.41×
12	Vibrio cholerae	43,212	12,563	42%	430	566,771	103,898	2.02×
13	Enterococcus faecalis	67,475	17,937	58%	422	548,442	158,858	5.68×
14	Staphylococcus epidermidis	52,575	14,751	55%	371	445,604	93,373	4.54×
15	Neisseria meningitidis	38,738	10,333	40%	370	504,586	120,430	1.89×
16	Campylobacter jejuni	31,652	10,512	49%	364	450,840	66,654	2.4×
17	Acinetobacter baumannii	49,946	18,399	66%	354	459,687	89,032	9.19×
18	Neisseria gonorrhoeae	38,765	12,966	34%	354	448,802	104,746	2.72×
19	Bordetella pertussis	39,424	6,750	47%	344	428,843	50,123	3.08×
20	Bacillus cereus	43,267	13,570	52%	342	405,837	137,100	4.26×
21	Legionella pneumophila	24,079	7,147	46%	341	415,696	50,473	1.9×
22	Enterococcus faecium	35,212	9,838	63%	337	401,308	48,843	7.11×
23	Yersinia pestis	24,691	4,425	50%	333	406,507	430,962	1.5×
24	Proteus mirabilis	31,632	7,230	51%	319	375,426	102,808	5.16×
25	Bifidobacterium longum	15,354	3,211	74%	317	350,030	36,787	11.24×
26	Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron	8,747	1,386	65%	315	365,315	14,451	7.37×
27	Akkermansia muciniphila	15,435	2,688	83%	305	340,078	63,176	166.56×
28	Streptococcus agalactiae	28,869	5,667	47%	276	304,578	81,916	3.73×
29	Clostridioides difficile	27,521	7,070	51%	271	276,370	78,834	7.3×
30	Citrobacter freundii	14,208	2,804	54%	249	254,646	39,032	4.4×
31	Vibrio parahaemolyticus	15,256	6,458	45%	247	284,032	21,422	4.22×
32	Bacteroides uniformis	4,392	438	73%	187	170,639	5,032	12.02×
33	Phocaeicola vulgatus	3,456	129	75%	186	157,384	19,120	22.19×
34	Brucella melitensis	7,802	2,683	44%	178	139,686	11,687	2.76×
35	Parabacteroides distasonis	3,178	383	83%	177	130,370	4,707	24.73×
36	Campylobacter coli	5,653	2,109	41%	174	143,383	8,060	1.86×
37	Streptococcus suis	7,106	2,830	58%	169	147,935	10,133	3.49×
38	Mycobacterium abscessus	6,889	3,076	58%	163	122,882	2,521	7.22×
39	Wolbachia pipientis	1,611	527	62%	132	80,605	1,561	1.96×
40	Lactiplantibacillus plantarum	11,923	4,095	53%	129	89,204	44,253	17.04×
41	Burkholderia mallei	1,918	496	57%	122	76,139	18,773	0.82×
42	Bacillus velezensis	4,523	2,025	69%	103	53,326	1	58.25×
43	Enterobacter hormaechei	2,412	644	75%	92	49,281	790	30.07×
44	Klebsiella variicola	1,702	376	80%	87	41,904	10,443	57.25×
45	Klebsiella quasipneumoniae	808	228	80%	62	17,852	4	51.67×
46	Muribaculum gordoncarteri	68	13	87%	11	680	—	23×
47	Lepagella muris	13	1	85%	5	429	—	1×
48	Sarcina perfringens	11	2	91%	5	66	—	1×
49	Enterobacter intestinihominis	9	3	78%	2	38	—	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 (202509–202609) · 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 2026-09-07

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