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How do I put a spatial ecological network on a map in MiRA?

In a spatial multilayer network, each layer is a place — a site, patch, or island — with real geographic coordinates. MiRA's Map Mode positions each layer at its longitude and latitude on an interactive world map, so the network's spatial arrangement is visible directly rather than abstracted away.

The dataset

The Basque Country spatial pollination network (Magrach et al. 2024) has 5 layers, 137 nodes, and 376 within-layer plus 142 between-layer links. Each layer is a sampling site with GPS coordinates; interlayer links connect the same species recorded at more than one site. It is undirected, bipartite, and spatial.

Walkthrough

1. Open MiRA, click Load Example Data, and choose Basque Country spatial pollination network.
2. Switch to Map Mode from the top toolbar. MiRA places each layer at its coordinates on a Leaflet base map. Map Mode is only available when layers carry latitude and longitude values.
3. Pan and zoom the map to see how the sites are distributed geographically, and how interlayer links bridge nearby versus distant sites.
4. Use the Interlayer Links controls to emphasise the between-site connections — these show which species are shared across the landscape.
5. Switch back to Network Mode to inspect the internal structure of each site without the geographic constraint, then return to Map Mode for spatial context. The two views answer different questions about the same data.
6. Open Dashboard Mode to quantify site-to-site overlap with the layer similarity (Jaccard) heatmap.

Use your own data

Add coordinates to your layers and export to MiRA's JSON or CSV format, then use Load Data. Map Mode will appear automatically once coordinates are present.