Visualization for communication throughout data-intensive research projects

Plots and figures have always been centerpieces of scientific discovery and communication. Ever-growing datasets and increasingly sophisticated analyses can increase the challenge of clearly visualizing data, but offer the potential for creating more informative and creative figures. Building figures in scripting environments like R, Python, and Matlab offers substantial payoffs in customization and reproducibility, enabling more efficient data exploration. Ecological data can also benefit immensely from the use of interactive visualizations in which the users can actively explore the data themselves. Innovative visualizations and tools will be discussed with examples and advice.