Picante is an R package that provides tools for analyzing phylogenetic and trait diversity in ecological communities. It calculates phylogenetic diversity metrics, performs trait comparative analyses, manipulates phenotypic and phylogenetic data, and tests for phylogenetic signal in trait distributions, community structure, and species interactions. Picante is written in R and C, released under a GPL v2 license, and is freely available online and from CRAN. The package integrates phylogenetic information into ecological analysis, allowing ecological questions to be addressed in an evolutionary context. This helps in understanding the processes that shape biological diversity. Picante addresses two main barriers in ecophyslogenetic research: the lack of open-source tools and the complexity of multiple software packages. It provides a single, open-source R package for the most commonly used ecophyslogenetic tools. Picante includes functions for data manipulation, visualization, and phylogenetic diversity and community structure analysis. It calculates various measures of phylogenetic α- and β-diversity, including Faith's phylogenetic diversity, taxonomic distinctness, mean pairwise phylogenetic distance, and phylogenetic species diversity metrics. It also provides tools for comparing phylogenetic diversity among communities and testing environmental drivers of phylogenetic community structure. Additionally, Picante performs statistical analyses of phylogenetic signal in species traits and interactions. It calculates the K statistic, a measure of phylogenetic signal, and performs phylogenetic regressions of interaction strengths using an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model. These analyses help estimate the relative contribution of traits versus phylogeny in explaining species interactions. The package is supported by funding from various institutions and has no declared conflicts of interest.Picante is an R package that provides tools for analyzing phylogenetic and trait diversity in ecological communities. It calculates phylogenetic diversity metrics, performs trait comparative analyses, manipulates phenotypic and phylogenetic data, and tests for phylogenetic signal in trait distributions, community structure, and species interactions. Picante is written in R and C, released under a GPL v2 license, and is freely available online and from CRAN. The package integrates phylogenetic information into ecological analysis, allowing ecological questions to be addressed in an evolutionary context. This helps in understanding the processes that shape biological diversity. Picante addresses two main barriers in ecophyslogenetic research: the lack of open-source tools and the complexity of multiple software packages. It provides a single, open-source R package for the most commonly used ecophyslogenetic tools. Picante includes functions for data manipulation, visualization, and phylogenetic diversity and community structure analysis. It calculates various measures of phylogenetic α- and β-diversity, including Faith's phylogenetic diversity, taxonomic distinctness, mean pairwise phylogenetic distance, and phylogenetic species diversity metrics. It also provides tools for comparing phylogenetic diversity among communities and testing environmental drivers of phylogenetic community structure. Additionally, Picante performs statistical analyses of phylogenetic signal in species traits and interactions. It calculates the K statistic, a measure of phylogenetic signal, and performs phylogenetic regressions of interaction strengths using an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model. These analyses help estimate the relative contribution of traits versus phylogeny in explaining species interactions. The package is supported by funding from various institutions and has no declared conflicts of interest.