What colour are Actinomycetes? We have a tool for that! PhylaChrome - A systematic and deterministic tool for assigning colours that capture taxonomic relationships in microbiome datasets

Abstract

Visual representations of data generated from complex microbial communities (i.e. microbiomes) can provide intuitive insights into their structure, function, and dynamics. However, current approaches typically rely on ad hoc selection of colour palettes that fail to capture taxonomic relationships and limit cross-study comparisons. PhylaChrome has been developed to systematically and deterministically assign colours to enhance visual separation of taxa, capture taxonomic relationships and facilitate intuitive comparisons across datasets.