Out of the squares and into the circles: Visualising Ecological Interactions with Circos

Circos is an open-source software package designed for visualising data and information (1) that traditional graphs can’t easily handle. It visualises data in a circular layout, which makes it ideal for exploring interactions between objects or positions. It was originally developed to be used by bioinformatics scientists for visualisation of genomic features and sequencies. However, it has since found applications in various fields and studies, including analysis of migration flows (2) and analysis of transcribed political speeches (3).

In our research, we used Circos to investigate interactions between pollinators, microorganisms and plant species. Although the results obtained were inconclusive, they highlighted areas needing further analysis. Circos has proven to be a great tool for identifying promising areas for deeper data exploration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senzo Miya is originally from South Africa and studied material science before moving to New Zealand for a post-doctoral research position at the University of Canterbury. After completing his post-doctoral program, he worked at Statistics New Zealand, where he gained insight into the critical role of data in decision-making.

Following his time at Statistics New Zealand, Senzo pursued a postgraduate diploma in applied data science. After graduating, he secured a position as a research data engineer at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, where he has been working for approximately two and a half years.

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