Create faceted xy scatters using vectors of column names in R - r

Question

I have two character vectors of equal length; where position one in vector.x matches position one in vector.y and so on. The elements refer to column names in a data frame (wide format). I would like to somehow loop through these vectors to produce xy scatter graphs for each pair in the vector, preferably in a faceted plot. Here is a (hopefully) reproducible example. To be clear, with this example, I would end up with 10 scatter graphs.
vector.x <- c("Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Bathycoccus", "Brockmanniella", "Brockmanniella", "Caecitellus_paraparvulus", "Caecitellus_paraparvulus")
vector.y <- c("Aliiroseovarius", "Neptuniibacter", "Pseudofulvibacter", "Thalassobius", "unclassified_Porticoccus", "Tenacibaculum", "Pseudomonas", "unclassified_GpIIa", "Marinobacter", "Thalassobius")
structure(list(Aliiroseovarius = c(0, 0, 0, 0.00487132352941176,
0.0108639420589757), Marinobacter = c(0, 0.00219023779724656,
0, 0.00137867647058824, 0.00310398344542162), Neptuniibacter = c(0.00945829750644884,
0.00959532749269921, 0.0171310629514964, 0.2796875, 0.345835488877393
), Pseudofulvibacter = c(0, 0, 0, 0.00284926470588235, 0.00362131401965856
), Pseudomonas = c(0.00466773123694878, 0.00782227784730914,
0.0282765737874097, 0.00707720588235294, 0.00400931195033627),
Tenacibaculum = c(0, 0, 0, 0.00505514705882353, 0.00362131401965856
), Thalassobius = c(0, 0.00166875260742595, 0, 0.0633272058823529,
0.147697878944646), unclassified_GpIIa = c(0, 0.000730079265748853,
0, 0.003125, 0.00103466114847387), unclassified_Porticoccus = c(0,
0, 0, 0.00119485294117647, 0.00569063631660631), Aplanochytrium = c(0,
0, 0, 0.000700770847932726, 0.0315839846865529), Bathycoccus = c(0.000388802488335925,
0, 0, 0.0227750525578136, 0.00526399744775881), Brockmanniella = c(0,
0.00383141762452107, 0, 0.000875963559915907, 0), Caecitellus_paraparvulus = c(0,
0, 0, 0.000875963559915907, 0.00797575370872547)), row.names = c("B11",
"B13", "B22", "DI5", "FF6"), class = "data.frame")

Answer 1

As Rui Barradas shows, it's possible to get a very nice plot from ggplot and gridExta. If you wanted to stick to base R, here's how you'd do that (assuming your data set is called df1):
# set plot sizes
par(mfcol = c(floor(sqrt(length(vector.x))), ceiling(sqrt(length(vector.x)))))
# loop through plots
for (i in 1:length(vector.x)) {
plot(df1[[vector.x[i]]], df1[[vector.y[i]]], xlab = vector.x[i], ylab = vector.y[i])
}
# reset plot size
par(mfcol = c(1,1))

Answer 2

This is a bit long and convoluted but it works.
library(tidyverse)
library(gridExtra)
df_list <- apply(data.frame(vector.x, vector.y), 1, function(x){
DF <- df1[which(names(df1) %in% x)]
i <- which(names(DF) %in% vector.x)
if(i == 2) DF[2:1] else DF
})
gg_list <- lapply(df_list, function(DF){
ggplot(DF, aes(x = get(names(DF)[1]), y = get(names(DF)[2]))) +
geom_point() +
xlab(label = names(DF)[1]) +
ylab(label = names(DF)[2])
})
g <- do.call(grid.arrange, gg_list)
g

Answer 3

Not too elegant, but should get you going:
vector.x <- c("Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Aplanochytrium", "Bathycoccus", "Brockmanniella", "Brockmanniella", "Caecitellus_paraparvulus", "Caecitellus_paraparvulus")
vector.y <- c("Aliiroseovarius", "Neptuniibacter", "Pseudofulvibacter", "Thalassobius", "unclassified_Porticoccus", "Tenacibaculum", "Pseudomonas", "unclassified_GpIIa", "Marinobacter", "Thalassobius")
df1 = structure(
list(Aliiroseovarius = c(0, 0, 0, 0.00487132352941176, 0.0108639420589757),
Marinobacter = c(0, 0.00219023779724656, 0, 0.00137867647058824, 0.00310398344542162),
Neptuniibacter = c(0.00945829750644884, 0.00959532749269921, 0.0171310629514964, 0.2796875, 0.345835488877393),
Pseudofulvibacter = c(0, 0, 0, 0.00284926470588235, 0.00362131401965856),
Pseudomonas = c(0.00466773123694878, 0.00782227784730914, 0.0282765737874097, 0.00707720588235294, 0.00400931195033627),
Tenacibaculum = c(0, 0, 0, 0.00505514705882353, 0.00362131401965856),
Thalassobius = c(0, 0.00166875260742595, 0, 0.0633272058823529, 0.147697878944646),
unclassified_GpIIa = c(0, 0.000730079265748853, 0, 0.003125, 0.00103466114847387),
unclassified_Porticoccus = c(0, 0, 0, 0.00119485294117647, 0.00569063631660631),
Aplanochytrium = c(0, 0, 0, 0.000700770847932726, 0.0315839846865529),
Bathycoccus = c(0.000388802488335925, 0, 0, 0.0227750525578136, 0.00526399744775881),
Brockmanniella = c(0, 0.00383141762452107, 0, 0.000875963559915907, 0),
Caecitellus_paraparvulus = c(0, 0, 0, 0.000875963559915907, 0.00797575370872547)),
row.names = c("B11", "B13", "B22", "DI5", "FF6"),
class = "data.frame"
)
df2 = NULL
for(i in 1:10) {
df.tmp = data.frame(
plot = paste0(vector.x[i], ":", vector.y[i]),
x = df1[[vector.x[i]]],
y = df1[[vector.y[i]]]
)
if(is.null(df2)) df2=df.tmp else df2 = rbind(df2, df.tmp)
}
ggplot(data=df2, aes(x, y)) +
geom_point() +
facet_grid(cols = vars(plot))