ARGscape: A modular, interactive tool for manipulation of spatiotemporal ancestral recombination graphs

SUMMARY: Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) are increasingly central to modern population genetics, yet ARG-based methods for spatiotemporal demographic inference remain underutilized in empirical settings due to fragmented workflows and a lack of exploratory tools. ARGscape addresses this by providing a unified framework, seamlessly integrating established and novel tools for ARG simulation, manipulation, and spatiotemporal inference into both graphical and command-line interfaces. ARGscape features dynamic 2- and 3-dimensional visualizations and a novel "spatial diff" visualization for quantitative comparison of ARG-based geographic inference methods. By integrating these various functionalities, ARGscape facilitates novel data exploration and hypothesis generation, bridging the gap between methods development and empirical adoption, and enabling educational uses. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: ARGscape is available as a Python package on PyPI and as a live website for educational and simple demonstrative purposes at https://www.argscape.com. The source code and documentation are available on GitHub at https://github.com/chris-a-talbot/argscape. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA: Supplementary data is available at Bioinformatics online.

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Publication Details

Journal
Bioinformatics
Published
2026-06-25
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btag420
Primary Topic
Evolutionary Algorithms and Applications
Type
preprint
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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preprint

ARGscape: A modular, interactive tool for manipulation of spatiotemporal ancestral recombination graphs

Chris J. Talbot, Gideon Bradburd
Bioinformatics
Evolutionary Algorithms and Applications
preprint

ARGscape: A modular, interactive tool for manipulation of spatiotemporal ancestral recombination graphs

Chris J. Talbot, Gideon Bradburd
preprint en

Abstract

SUMMARY: Ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs) are increasingly central to modern population genetics, yet ARG-based methods for spatiotemporal demographic inference remain underutilized in empirical settings due to fragmented workflows and a lack of exploratory tools. ARGscape addresses this by providing a unified framework, seamlessly integrating established and novel tools for ARG simulation, manipulation, and spatiotemporal inference into both graphical and command-line interfaces. ARGscape features dynamic 2- and 3-dimensional visualizations and a novel "spatial diff" visualization for quantitative comparison of ARG-based geographic inference methods. By integrating these various functionalities, ARGscape facilitates novel data exploration and hypothesis generation, bridging the gap between methods development and empirical adoption, and enabling educational uses. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: ARGscape is available as a Python package on PyPI and as a live website for educational and simple demonstrative purposes at https://www.argscape.com. The source code and documentation are available on GitHub at https://github.com/chris-a-talbot/argscape. SUPPLEMENTARY DATA: Supplementary data is available at Bioinformatics online.

Bioinformatics
Cornell University (US), University of Michigan (US)
University of Michigan
Openalex Percentile: Top 99%
Evolutionary Algorithms and Applications
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ARGscape: A modular, interactive tool for manipulation of spatiotemporal ancestral recombination graphs — Chris J. Talbot, Gideon Bradburd · Bioinformatics (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS