Setting all theme elements blank does not affect the axis elemenets - r

Question

I have the dataframe below
GO<-c("cytosol (GO:0005829)","cytosol (GO:0005829)")
FE<-c(2.70,4.38)
FDR<-c(0.00159,0.00857)
Facet<-c("ileum 24h","ileum 72h")
CCC<-data.frame(GO,FE,FDR,Facet)
and with this code
CCC %>%
arrange(desc(CCC$GO))%>%
ggplot(aes(x = FDR, y = GO, size = FE, color = FDR)) +
geom_point(alpha = 0.5) +
scale_size(range = c(5, 8), name = "Fold enrichment") +
facet_grid(cols = vars(Facet), scales = "free") +
theme(axis.title.x=element_blank(),axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1)) +
scale_y_discrete(name = "GO biological process complete") +
scale_x_continuous(name = "FDR") +
scale_colour_gradient(low = "yellow", high = "red", name = "FDR") +
theme_bw()
I create a bubble plot with facets. But I want to delete the x-axis title 'FDR' and display the labels with an angle but despite setting the theme() it does not change.

Answer 1

You have put theme_bw() at the end, which over-writes your theme call. Put your custom themes at the end:
CCC %>%
arrange(desc(CCC$GO))%>%
ggplot(aes(x = FDR, y = GO, size = FE, color = FDR)) +
geom_point(alpha = 0.5) +
scale_size(range = c(5, 8), name = "Fold enrichment") +
scale_y_discrete(name = "GO biological process complete") +
scale_x_continuous(name = "FDR") +
scale_colour_gradient(low = "yellow", high = "red", name = "FDR") +
facet_grid(cols = vars(Facet), scales = "free") +
theme_bw() +
theme(axis.title.x = element_blank(),
axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1))
I think it is good practice to lay out your calls to ggplot in a consistent way so that this kind of thing doesn't happen:
Call ggplot +
Geom (and stat) layers, ordered depending on which ones you want on top +
Scales +
Facets +
Labels and titles +
Global themes like theme_bw() +
Individual theme tweaks via theme

Answer 2

Only change the position of theme_bw():
library(tidyverse)
#Data
GO<-c("cytosol (GO:0005829)","cytosol (GO:0005829)")
FE<-c(2.70,4.38)
FDR<-c(0.00159,0.00857)
Facet<-c("ileum 24h","ileum 72h")
CCC<-data.frame(GO,FE,FDR,Facet)
#Plot
CCC %>%
arrange(desc(CCC$GO))%>%
ggplot(aes(x = FDR, y = GO, size = FE, color = FDR)) +
geom_point(alpha = 0.5) +
scale_size(range = c(5, 8), name = "Fold enrichment") +
facet_grid(cols = vars(Facet), scales = "free") +
xlab('')+
theme_bw()+
theme(axis.title.x=element_blank(),
axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, vjust = 0.5, hjust = 1)) +
scale_y_discrete(name = "GO biological process complete") +
scale_x_continuous(name = "") +
scale_colour_gradient(low = "yellow", high = "red", name = "FDR")
Output: