'Circuitscape' and 'Omniscape' Connectivity Analysis via 'Julia'

Provides an R-native interface to the 'Circuitscape.jl' and 'Omniscape.jl' 'Julia' packages for landscape connectivity modeling using circuit theory. Users work entirely in R with familiar objects (SpatRaster, file paths) while 'Julia' handles computation invisibly. Supports all four 'Circuitscape' modes (pairwise, one-to-all, all-to-one, advanced) and 'Omniscape' moving-window analysis. Methods are described in McRae (2006) and Landau et al. (2021) .

circuitscaper

circuitscaper provides a streamlined R interface for Circuitscape.jl and Omniscape.jl. It allows you to run these high-performance landscape connectivity models entirely from R, while Julia handles the heavy lifting under the hood.

Native R Workflow: Input and output terra raster objects directly.
Automated Setup: One-line installation of Julia and all required dependencies.
High Performance: Leverages Julia’s state-of-the-art solvers for large landscapes.

Note: circuitscaper is an independent R package and is not affiliated with the Circuitscape development team. It is a lightweight wrapper to the excellent Julia tools developed by Brad McRae, Viral Shah, Tanmay Mohapatra, Ranjan Anantharaman, and collaborators.

Installation

# 1. Install the R package from CRAN
install.packages("circuitscaper")
# or install the development version from GitHub
# remotes::install_github("matthewkling/circuitscaper")

# 2. Let the package install Julia and the necessary Julia libraries
library(circuitscaper)
cs_install_julia()

Example

library(circuitscaper)
library(terra)

# Load an example resistance raster
resistance <- rast(system.file("extdata/resistance.tif", package = "circuitscaper"))

# Pairwise Circuitscape
# (result is a list containing the pairwise resistance matrix and current maps)
focal_sites <- matrix(c(10, 40, 40, 40, 25, 10), ncol = 2, byrow = TRUE)
result <- cs_pairwise(resistance, focal_sites)
plot(result$current_map)


# Omniscape -- wall-to-wall moving-window connectivity
# (result is a multi-layer raster of current flow variables)
result <- os_run(resistance, radius = 10)
plot(result$normalized_current)

Functions

Function	Description	Julia backend
`cs_pairwise()`	Pairwise effective resistance and current flow	`Circuitscape.compute()`
`cs_one_to_all()`	One-to-all connectivity analysis	`Circuitscape.compute()`
`cs_all_to_one()`	All-to-one connectivity analysis	`Circuitscape.compute()`
`cs_advanced()`	Advanced mode with custom sources and grounds	`Circuitscape.compute()`
`os_run()`	Omniscape moving-window connectivity	`Omniscape.run_omniscape()`
`os_condition()`	Define conditions for conditional Omniscape connectivity	???
`cs_setup()`	Initialize Julia session (called automatically)	`JuliaCall::julia_library()`
`cs_install_julia()`	Install Julia and required packages	`JuliaCall::install_julia()`, `JuliaCall::julia_install_package()`
`cs_julia_available()`	Check whether Julia, Circuitscape.jl, and Omniscape.jl are installed	`julia -e "using Circuitscape"` via `system2()`

Requirements

R >= 4.0
Julia >= 1.9 (installed automatically via cs_install_julia())
R packages: terra, JuliaCall

Learn More

Getting started vignette
Circuitscape user guide
Omniscape documentation
McRae, B.H. (2006). Isolation by resistance. Evolution, 60(8), 1551-1561.
McRae, B.H. & Beier, P. (2007). Circuit theory predicts gene flow in plant and animal populations. PNAS, 104(50), 19885-19890.
McRae, B.H., Dickson, B.G., Keitt, T.H. & Shah, V.B. (2008). Using circuit theory to model connectivity in ecology, evolution, and conservation. Ecology, 89(10), 2712-2724.