Video-graph

A fantastic way to visualize spatial patterns in time. This can not be done in the printed paper, but it can be introduced as a .gif file in the supplementary material.

Figure S1. Movie of historical defoliation caused by the Larch Budmoth, Zeiraphera diniana in the European Alps, 1961-1998. Inset graph shows the proportion of all areas that were defoliated in each year. Defoliation polygons were aggregated to form raster estimates of the proportion of 20 x 20 km grid cells that were defoliated. Bubbles are proportional to the amount of defoliation in each cell in each year. Visual inspection of the movie suggests the existence of repeated outbreak waves moving from west to east.

Reference Bjørnstad, O.N., Peltonen, M., Liebhold, A.M. & Baltensweiler, W. (2002) Waves of larch budmoth outbreaks in the European alps. Science 298: 1020-1023. (download pdf) (Supplement) (paper in Science website).
Related info: Ottar Nordal Bjørnstad webpage
Input idea courtesy of Pablo Almaraz

Read more...

Panels in front of a map

A clear way of showing plots in its spatial contexts without a waste of space. The light gray of the map precludes the compound graph to become messy. Note also the interesting small shaded histograms inside each panel.

Reference LaDeau SL, Kilpatrick AM & Marra PP. (2007) West Nile virus emergence and large-scale declines of North American bird populations. Nature 447:710-713. doi:10.1038/nature05829 (download pdf) (Nature webpage)

Read more...