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fantaxtic

fantaxtic contains a set of functions to identify and visualize the most abundant taxa in phyloseq objects. It allows users to identify top taxa using any metric and any grouping, and plot the (relative) abundances of the top taxa using a nested bar plot visualisation. In the nested bar plot, colours or fills signify a top taxonomic rank (e.g. Phylum), and a gradient of shades and tints signifies levels at a nested taxonomic rank (e.g. Species). It is particularly useful to present an overview of microbiome sequencing, amplicon sequencing or metabarcoding data.

Note that fantaxtic is essentially a wrapper around ggnested, with some accessory functions to identify top taxa and to ensure that the plot is useful. Thus, the output is ggplot2 object, and can be manipulated as such.

Keywords: nested bar plot, phyloseq, taxonomy, most abundant taxa, multiple levels, shades, tints, gradient, 16S, ITS ,18S, microbiome, amplicon sequencing, metabarcoding

Installation

if(!"devtools" %in% installed.packages()){
  install.packages("devtools")
}
devtools::install_github("gmteunisse/fantaxtic")

Basic usage

The workflow consists of two parts:

  1. Identify top taxa using either top_taxa or nested_top_taxa
  2. Visualise the top taxa using nested_bar_plot

For basic usage, only a few lines of R code are required. To identify and plot the top 10 most abundant ASVs by their mean relative abundance, using Phylum as the top rank and Species as the nested rank, run:

require("fantaxtic")
require("phyloseq")
require("tidyverse")
require("magrittr")
require("ggnested")
require("knitr")
require("gridExtra")
data(GlobalPatterns)
top_asv <- top_taxa(GlobalPatterns, n_taxa = 10)
plot_nested_bar(ps_obj = top_asv$ps_obj,
                top_level = "Phylum",
                nested_level = "Species")

To identify and plot the top 3 most abundant Phyla, and the top 3 most abundant species within those Phyla, run:

top_nested <- nested_top_taxa(GlobalPatterns,
                              top_tax_level = "Phylum",
                              nested_tax_level = "Species",
                              n_top_taxa = 3, 
                              n_nested_taxa = 3)
plot_nested_bar(ps_obj = top_nested$ps_obj,
                top_level = "Phylum",
                nested_level = "Species")

top_taxa

This function identifies the top n taxa by some metric (e.g. mean, median, variance, etc.) in a phyloseq object. It outputs a table with the top taxa, as well as a phyloseq object in which all other taxa have been merged into a single taxon.

Taxonomic rank

By default, top_taxa runs the analysis at the ASV level; however, if a tax_level is specified (e.g. Species), it first agglomerates the taxa in the phyloseq object at that rank and then runs the analysis. Note that taxonomic agglomeration makes the assumption that taxa with the same name at all ranks are identical. This also includes taxa with missing annotations (NA). By default, top_taxa does not considered taxa with an NA annotation at tax_level, but this can be overcome by setting include_na_taxa = T.

top_species <- top_taxa(GlobalPatterns,
                        n_taxa = 10, 
                        tax_level = "Species")
top_species$top_taxa %>%
  mutate(abundance = round(abundance, 3)) %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
tax_rank taxid abundance Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
4 326977 0.010 Bacteria Actinobacteria Actinobacteria Bifidobacteriales Bifidobacteriaceae Bifidobacterium Bifidobacteriumadolescentis
9 9514 0.005 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Actinobacillus Actinobacillusporcinus
1 94166 0.014 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Haemophilus Haemophilusparainfluenzae
8 469778 0.005 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides Bacteroidescoprophilus
6 471122 0.006 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Prevotellaceae Prevotella Prevotellamelaninogenica
10 248140 0.005 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides Bacteroidescaccae
7 470973 0.005 Bacteria Firmicutes Clostridia Clostridiales Lachnospiraceae Ruminococcus Ruminococcustorques
3 171551 0.011 Bacteria Firmicutes Clostridia Clostridiales Ruminococcaceae Faecalibacterium Faecalibacteriumprausnitzii
2 98605 0.013 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis
5 114821 0.009 Bacteria Firmicutes Clostridia Clostridiales Veillonellaceae Veillonella Veillonellaparvula

Grouping

Furthermore, if one or more grouping factors are specified in grouping, it will calculate the top n taxa using the samples in each group, rather than using all samples in the phyloseq object. This makes it possible to for example identify the top taxa in each sample, or the top taxa in each treatment group.

top_grouped <- top_taxa(GlobalPatterns,
                        n_taxa = 1,
                        grouping = "SampleType")
top_grouped$top_taxa %>%
  mutate(abundance = round(abundance, 3)) %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
SampleType tax_rank taxid abundance Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
Freshwater (creek) 1 549656 0.464 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA NA NA
Freshwater 1 279599 0.216 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Nostocophycideae Nostocales Nostocaceae Dolichospermum NA
Ocean 1 557211 0.071 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Synechococcophycideae Synechococcales Synechococcaceae Prochlorococcus NA
Tongue 1 360229 0.145 Bacteria Proteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Neisseriales Neisseriaceae Neisseria NA
Mock 1 550960 0.117 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Enterobacteriales Enterobacteriaceae Providencia NA
Sediment (estuary) 1 319044 0.080 Bacteria Proteobacteria Deltaproteobacteria Desulfobacterales Desulfobulbaceae NA NA
Feces 1 331820 0.137 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides NA
Soil 1 36155 0.013 Bacteria Acidobacteria Solibacteres Solibacterales Solibacteraceae CandidatusSolibacter NA
Skin 1 98605 0.103 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis

Ranking metric

Lastly, any metric can be used to rank taxa by specifying a function through FUN. The mean is used by default, but depending on your analysis, you might want to use the median, variance, maximum or any other function that takes as input a numeric vector and outputs a single number.

top_max <- top_taxa(GlobalPatterns,
                        n_taxa = 10,
                        FUN = max)
top_max$top_taxa %>%
  mutate(abundance = round(abundance, 3)) %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
tax_rank taxid abundance Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
4 329744 0.266 Bacteria Actinobacteria Actinobacteria Actinomycetales ACK-M1 NA NA
1 549656 0.500 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA NA NA
2 279599 0.432 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Nostocophycideae Nostocales Nostocaceae Dolichospermum NA
3 360229 0.270 Bacteria Proteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Neisseriales Neisseriaceae Neisseria NA
8 94166 0.198 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Haemophilus Haemophilusparainfluenzae
9 484436 0.196 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pseudomonadales Moraxellaceae NA NA
5 331820 0.230 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides NA
7 189047 0.207 Bacteria Firmicutes Clostridia Clostridiales Ruminococcaceae NA NA
6 98605 0.223 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis
10 114821 0.187 Bacteria Firmicutes Clostridia Clostridiales Veillonellaceae Veillonella Veillonellaparvula

nested_top_taxa

This function identifies the top n taxa at a taxonomic rank (e.g. Phylum) and the top m nested taxa at a lower taxonomic rank (e.g. Species) by some metric (e.g. mean, median, variance, etc.) in a phyloseq object. Internally, it makes use of top_taxa, and therefore uses many of the same options. Like top_taxa, it agglomerates taxa at the specified taxonomic ranks before identifying the top taxa. It outputs a table with the top taxa, as well as a phyloseq object in which all non-top taxa have been merged, both at the top_tax_level and at the nested_tax_level. This function is especially nice for providing overviews of your data, as it shows the relative abundance of each select top_tax_level taxon.

top_nested <- nested_top_taxa(GlobalPatterns,
                              top_tax_level = "Phylum",
                              nested_tax_level = "Species",
                              n_top_taxa = 3, 
                              n_nested_taxa = 3, 
                              nested_merged_label = "NA and other <tax>")
top_nested$top_taxa %>%
  mutate(top_abundance = round(top_abundance, 3),
         nested_abundance = round(nested_abundance, 3)) %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
taxid top_abundance nested_abundance top_tax_rank nested_tax_rank Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
200741 0.295 0.072 1 3 Bacteria Proteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Burkholderiales NA Methylibium Methylibiumpetroleiphilum
94166 0.295 0.122 1 1 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Haemophilus Haemophilusparainfluenzae
236788 0.295 0.094 1 2 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Enterobacteriales Enterobacteriaceae Edwardsiella Edwardsiellaictaluri
322235 0.173 0.110 3 2 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides Bacteroidesuniformis
471122 0.173 0.147 3 1 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Prevotellaceae Prevotella Prevotellamelaninogenica
248140 0.173 0.076 3 3 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides Bacteroidescaccae
171551 0.189 0.162 2 1 Bacteria Firmicutes Clostridia Clostridiales Ruminococcaceae Faecalibacterium Faecalibacteriumprausnitzii
98605 0.189 0.116 2 2 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis
114821 0.189 0.089 2 3 Bacteria Firmicutes Clostridia Clostridiales Veillonellaceae Veillonella Veillonellaparvula

plot_nested_bar

This function is analogous in use to the phyloseq function plot_bar, but plots the abundances of taxa in each sample at two levels: a top level (e.g. Phylum) using colours, and a nested level (e.g. Species) using shades and tints of each colour. It is intended to be used in conjunction with top_taxa or nested_top_taxa, but works with any phyloseq object. The output is a ggplot2 object that is generated by ggnested, which means it can be further customized by the user, for example with faceting, themes, labels et cetera. Also see the documentation for ggnested.

plot_nested_bar(top_nested$ps_obj,
                top_level = "Phylum",
                nested_level = "Species",
                nested_merged_label = "NA and other <tax>",
                legend_title = "Phylum and species") +
  facet_wrap(~SampleType,
             scales = "free_x") +
  labs(title = "Relative abundances of the top 3 species for each of the top 3 phyla") +
  theme(plot.title = element_text(hjust = 0.5, 
                                  size = 8, 
                                  face = "bold"),
        legend.key.size = unit(10, 
                               "points"))

Palette

plot_nested_bar automatically generates as many colours as there are top_level taxa, starting from a base_clr. Furthermore, it colours the merged non-top taxa a different merged_clr, by default grey. Sometimes it is necessary to alter the colours of the plot, which is why custom top_level palettes can be provided. If the palette is named, the colours will be assigned appropriately. Note that it is not necessary to provide a complete palette; any missing colours will get generated automatically. This can be useful if you are trying to match colours between different plots.

plot_nested_bar(top_nested$ps_obj,
                top_level = "Phylum",
                nested_level = "Species",
                nested_merged_label = "NA and other",
                palette = c(Bacteroidetes = "red", 
                            Proteobacteria = "blue"),
                merged_clr = "black")

Sample order

By default, plot_nested_bar orders samples alphabetically. However, sometimes it may be insightful to alter the sample ordering, for example based on grouping or the abundance of a specific taxon. This can be achieved by supplying a character vector with the sample names in the desired order to sample_order.

# Order samples by the total abundance of Proteobacteria
sample_order <- psmelt(top_nested$ps_obj) %>%
  data.frame() %>%
  
  # Calculate relative abundances
  group_by(Sample) %>%
  mutate(Abundance = Abundance / sum(Abundance)) %>%
  
  # Sort by taxon of interest
  filter(Phylum == "Proteobacteria") %>%
  group_by(Sample) %>%
  summarise(Abundance = sum(Abundance)) %>%
  arrange(Abundance) %>% 
  
  # Extract the sample order
  pull(Sample) %>%
  as.character()

# Plot
plot_nested_bar(top_nested$ps_obj,
                "Phylum",
                "Species",
                sample_order = sample_order,
                nested_merged_label = "NA and other")

Advanced usage

The plot_nested_bar function will suffice for most purposes. However, sometimes, additional control over the plot is required. While some aspects can be controlled by altering additional arguments of plot_nested_bar, it may sometimes be necessary to generate the plot from scratch. plot_nested_bar is nothing more than a wrapper around the following functions, and can therefore be recreated manually if required:

  • Generate a palette using taxon_colours
  • Generate names for NA taxa using name_na_taxa
  • Label identical taxa using label_duplicate_taxa
  • Convert the phyloseq object to a data frame using psmelt
  • Relevel the merged taxa using move_label and move_nested_labels
  • Reorder the taxa
  • Generate a nested barplot using ggnested

Thus, for advanced usage, copy the code chunk below and modify it to your requirements.

# Get the top taxa
top_level <- "Phylum"
nested_level <- "Species"
sample_order <- NULL
top_asv <- top_taxa(GlobalPatterns, n_taxa = 10)

# Create names for NA taxa
ps_tmp <- top_asv$ps_obj %>%
  name_na_taxa()

# Add labels to taxa with the same names
ps_tmp <- ps_tmp %>%
  label_duplicate_taxa(tax_level = nested_level)

# Generate a palette basedon the phyloseq object
pal <- taxon_colours(ps_tmp,
                     tax_level = top_level)

# Convert physeq to df
psdf <- psmelt(ps_tmp)

# Move the merged labels to the appropriate positions in the plot:
# Top merged labels need to be at the top of the plot,
# nested merged labels at the bottom of each group
psdf <- move_label(psdf = psdf,
                   col_name = top_level,
                   label = "Other",
                   pos = 0)
psdf <- move_nested_labels(psdf,
                           top_level = top_level,
                           nested_level = nested_level,
                           top_merged_label = "Other",
                           nested_label = "Other",
                           pos = Inf)

# Reorder samples
if(!is.null(sample_order)){
  if(all(sample_order %in% unique(psdf$Sample))){
    psdf <- psdf %>%
      mutate(Sample = factor(Sample, levels = sample_order))
  } else {
    stop("Error: not all(sample_order %in% sample_names(ps_obj)).")
  }

}

# Generate a base plot
p <- ggnested(psdf,
              aes_string(main_group = top_level,
                         sub_group = nested_level,
                         x = "Sample",
                         y = "Abundance"),
              main_palette = pal) +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = c(0, 0)) +
  theme_nested(theme_light) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(hjust = 1, vjust = 0.5, angle = 90))

# Add relative abundances
p <- p + geom_col(position = position_fill())
p

name_na_taxa

More often than not, ASVs will not have a complete taxonomic annotation down to the species level. In phyloseq object, this results in NA for any unavailable taxonomic rank. This creates issues when trying to plot at a low taxonomic rank such as Species. name_na_taxa resolves this problem by assigning the name of the lowest known taxonomic rank for every NA value in each ASV. To make it clear that the newly inferred name is not specific to the rank, it includes the rank from which the name was inferred in the new name. This can be turned off by setting include_rank = F.

# Fill in names for NA taxa, including their rank
ps_tmp <- name_na_taxa(top_asv$ps_obj)
tax_table(ps_tmp) %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
549322 Other Other Other Other Other Other Other
329744 Bacteria Actinobacteria Actinobacteria Actinomycetales ACK-M1 Unknown ACK-M1 (Family) Unknown ACK-M1 (Family)
317182 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) Unknown Stramenopiles (Order)
549656 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) Unknown Stramenopiles (Order)
279599 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Nostocophycideae Nostocales Nostocaceae Dolichospermum Unknown Dolichospermum (Genus)
360229 Bacteria Proteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Neisseriales Neisseriaceae Neisseria Unknown Neisseria (Genus)
94166 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Haemophilus Haemophilusparainfluenzae
550960 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Enterobacteriales Enterobacteriaceae Providencia Unknown Providencia (Genus)
158660 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides Unknown Bacteroides (Genus)
331820 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides Unknown Bacteroides (Genus)
98605 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis
# Leave the rank out and alter the label
ps_tmp <- name_na_taxa(top_asv$ps_obj, 
                       include_rank = F, 
                       na_label = "NA <tax>")
tax_table(ps_tmp) %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
549322 Other Other Other Other Other Other Other
329744 Bacteria Actinobacteria Actinobacteria Actinomycetales ACK-M1 NA ACK-M1 NA ACK-M1
317182 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA Stramenopiles NA Stramenopiles NA Stramenopiles
549656 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA Stramenopiles NA Stramenopiles NA Stramenopiles
279599 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Nostocophycideae Nostocales Nostocaceae Dolichospermum NA Dolichospermum
360229 Bacteria Proteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Neisseriales Neisseriaceae Neisseria NA Neisseria
94166 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Haemophilus Haemophilusparainfluenzae
550960 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Enterobacteriales Enterobacteriaceae Providencia NA Providencia
158660 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides NA Bacteroides
331820 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides NA Bacteroides
98605 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis

taxon_colours

This function generates a colour for each taxon at a specified rank in a phyloseq object. Custom palettes can also be provided, and if they are named, colours wil be assigned appropriately.

# Function to plot the colours in a palette
plot_colours <- function(pal){
  pal %>%
    data.frame(name = names(.),
               colour = .) %>%
    ggplot(aes(x = 1,
               y = name,
               fill = colour,
               label = paste(name, "-", colour))) +
    geom_tile() +
    geom_text() +
    scale_fill_identity() +
    scale_x_discrete(expand = c(0,0)) +
    scale_y_discrete(expand = c(0,0)) +
    theme(axis.text = element_blank(),
          axis.title = element_blank(),
          axis.ticks = element_blank(),
          plot.title = element_text(hjust = 0.5,
                                    size = 12))
}

# Get top taxa and generate a palette
pal <- taxon_colours(top_asv$ps_obj, tax_level = "Phylum")
p1 <- plot_colours(pal) +
  ggtitle("Default")

# Generate a palette with a different base_clr
pal2 <- taxon_colours(top_asv$ps_obj, tax_level = "Phylum", base_clr = "blue")
p2 <- plot_colours(pal2) +
  ggtitle("Base colour blue")

# Provide a custom incomplete palette
pal3 <- taxon_colours(top_asv$ps_obj, 
                     tax_level = "Phylum", 
                     palette = c(Cyanobacteria = "blue", 
                                 Bacteroidetes = "pink"))
p3 <- plot_colours(pal3) +
  ggtitle("Incomplete custom palette")
grid.arrange(p1, p2, p3, nrow = 1)

label_duplicate_taxa

Another issue is that a single taxon may be represented by multiple ASVs, especially when low-rank annotations such as Species are missing. For some studies, it may be important to differentiate between these ASVs. Therefore, ASVs with the same taxonomy need to be assigned unique label to differentiate between them. label_duplicate_taxa identifies identical taxa and assigns either a count or the ASV name (taken from row.names(tax_table(ps_obj))) to these taxa.

# Label the lowest non-NA level
ps_tmp <- label_duplicate_taxa(top_asv$ps_obj, 
                               tax_level = "Genus")
tax_table(ps_tmp)  %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
549322 Other Other Other Other Other Other Other
329744 Bacteria Actinobacteria Actinobacteria Actinomycetales ACK-M1 NA NA
317182 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA NA NA
549656 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA NA NA
279599 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Nostocophycideae Nostocales Nostocaceae Dolichospermum NA
360229 Bacteria Proteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Neisseriales Neisseriaceae Neisseria NA
94166 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Haemophilus Haemophilusparainfluenzae
550960 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Enterobacteriales Enterobacteriaceae Providencia NA
158660 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides 1 NA
331820 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides 2 NA
98605 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis
# Use ASVs as ids rather than counts
ps_tmp <- label_duplicate_taxa(top_asv$ps_obj,
                               tax_level = "Genus",
                               asv_as_id = T, 
                               duplicate_label = "<tax> ASV <id>")
tax_table(ps_tmp) %>%
  kable(format = "markdown")
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
549322 Other Other Other Other Other Other Other
329744 Bacteria Actinobacteria Actinobacteria Actinomycetales ACK-M1 NA NA
317182 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA NA NA
549656 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Chloroplast Stramenopiles NA NA NA
279599 Bacteria Cyanobacteria Nostocophycideae Nostocales Nostocaceae Dolichospermum NA
360229 Bacteria Proteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Neisseriales Neisseriaceae Neisseria NA
94166 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Pasteurellales Pasteurellaceae Haemophilus Haemophilusparainfluenzae
550960 Bacteria Proteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Enterobacteriales Enterobacteriaceae Providencia NA
158660 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides ASV 158660 NA
331820 Bacteria Bacteroidetes Bacteroidia Bacteroidales Bacteroidaceae Bacteroides ASV 331820 NA
98605 Bacteria Firmicutes Bacilli Lactobacillales Streptococcaceae Streptococcus Streptococcussanguinis

move_label & move_nested_labels

move_label and move_nested_label reorder the factors in a specified column of a dataframe, so that in plot_nested_bar they appear in the right position. This is mainly used to place the Other merged taxa at the top of the plot, and the Other <tax> nested merged taxa at the bottom of each group. However, it can be used to move any taxon to any position. For example, if you are ordering your plot by the abundance of a specific Phylum, it may be desirable to make that Phylum appear at the bottom of the plot using pos = Inf.

# Turn physeq object into a dataframe
ps_tmp <- name_na_taxa(top_asv$ps_obj)
ps_tmp <- label_duplicate_taxa(ps_tmp, tax_level = "Species")
psdf <- psmelt(ps_tmp)
levels(as.factor(psdf$Phylum))
#> [1] "Actinobacteria" "Bacteroidetes"  "Cyanobacteria"  "Firmicutes"    
#> [5] "Other"          "Proteobacteria"

# Move the other label to the start, and Bacteroidetes to the end
psdf <- move_label(psdf, col_name = "Phylum", label =  "Other", pos = 0)
psdf <- move_label(psdf, col_name = "Phylum", label =  "Bacteroidetes", pos = Inf)
levels(psdf$Phylum)
#> [1] "Other"          "Actinobacteria" "Cyanobacteria"  "Firmicutes"    
#> [5] "Proteobacteria" "Bacteroidetes"

Likewise, any nested label can be moved to any desired position. grep will be used to find any taxon that contains the nested_label, after which it will be moved to the desired nested position. Here we flip the order of the two Unknown Bacteroides.

levels(as.factor(psdf$Species))
#>  [1] "Haemophilusparainfluenzae"       "Other"                          
#>  [3] "Streptococcussanguinis"          "Unknown ACK-M1 (Family)"        
#>  [5] "Unknown Bacteroides (Genus) 1"   "Unknown Bacteroides (Genus) 2"  
#>  [7] "Unknown Dolichospermum (Genus)"  "Unknown Neisseria (Genus)"      
#>  [9] "Unknown Providencia (Genus)"     "Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) 1"
#> [11] "Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) 2"
psdf <- move_nested_labels(psdf, 
                           top_level = "Phylum", 
                           nested_level = "Species",
                           top_merged_label = "Other",
                           nested_label = "Unknown Bacteroides 1",
                           pos = Inf)
levels(psdf$Species)
#>  [1] "Unknown ACK-M1 (Family)"         "Unknown Bacteroides (Genus) 1"  
#>  [3] "Unknown Bacteroides (Genus) 2"   "Unknown Dolichospermum (Genus)" 
#>  [5] "Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) 1" "Unknown Stramenopiles (Order) 2"
#>  [7] "Streptococcussanguinis"          "Haemophilusparainfluenzae"      
#>  [9] "Unknown Neisseria (Genus)"       "Unknown Providencia (Genus)"    
#> [11] "Other"

ggnested

Finally, the melted phyloseq object can be plotted using ggnested and ggplot. This gives full control over all aspects of the plot, including details such as the bar width. For more details, see the documentation of ggnested.

# Generate a base plot
p <- ggnested(psdf,
              aes_string(main_group = top_level,
                         sub_group = nested_level,
                         x = "Sample",
                         y = "Abundance"),
              main_palette = pal) +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = c(0, 0)) +
  theme_nested(theme_light) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(hjust = 1, vjust = 0.5, angle = 90))

# Add relative abundances
p <- p + geom_col(position = position_fill(), width = 0.5)
p

Alternative plot types

By using ggnested directly rather than using plot_nested_bar, any type of plot can be created that is available through ggplot2. For example, you could create a boxplot that is grouped and coloured by phylum, and shaded by species:

# Create a boxplot instead of a barplot
psdf_rel <- psdf %>%
  group_by(Sample) %>%
  mutate(Abundance = Abundance / sum(Abundance)) %>%
  ungroup() %>%
  filter(Phylum != "Other")
p <- ggnested(psdf_rel,
              aes_string(main_group = top_level,
                         sub_group = nested_level,
                         x = "Phylum",
                         y = "Abundance",
                         grouping = "Species"),
              main_palette = pal,
              main_keys = T) +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = c(0, 0)) +
  theme_nested(theme_light) +
  theme(axis.text.x = element_text(hjust = 1, vjust = 0.5, angle = 90))
p + geom_boxplot(alpha = 0.5)

What happened to fantaxtic_bar?

All the functions in fantaxtic that were required to generate a fantaxtic_bar, such as get_top_taxa, have been deprecated. However, they are still functional and can be called. Many warnings will be issued, but this does not affect their functionality. See help("fantaxtic-deprecated") for deprecated functions.

ps_tmp <- get_top_taxa(GlobalPatterns, n = 10)
ps_tmp <- name_taxa(ps_tmp, label = "Unkown", species = T, other_label = "Other")
fantaxtic_bar(ps_tmp, color_by = "Phylum", label_by = "Species", other_label = "Other")