Work

pylifemap : Mapping data onto the tree of life

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The need to visualize data associated with NCBI Taxonomy Identifiers is growing in various biological fields ranging from comparative genomics to metagenomics and metabarcoding, and even for outreach. No tool today allows visualization of such data while still keeping the full vision of the whole taxonomy, possibly causing a biased view of the data at hand. Here we introduce pylifemap , a Python package that allows users to map their own data directly on the interactive taxonomic tree proposed by Lifemap. Through a simple syntax, layers (points, lines, icons, heatmaps, etc.) depicting any type of data are superimposed on the Lifemap basemap, producing an interactive map to inspect biological datasets. The produced visualizations can easily be shared with others through notebooks or standalone HTML files, or exported as static images. We illustrate the utility of pylifemap in the exploration of two contrasting datasets: the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and the output of a large-scale environmental metagenomics experiment. Data/Code for peer review pylifemap is available at PyPI and easily installable with pip or uv. The development version can be found at https://lifemap-tol.github.io/pylifemap/ along with extensive documentation and examples.

Source: Methods in Ecology and Evolution

DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.70300

Authors: Julien Barnier, Cassandra Bompard, Aurélie Siberchicot, Vincent Navratil, Joaquim Martin, Damien M. de Vienne