refuginator: An Interactive Tool for Identifying Refugia

The Refuginator is a user-friendly browser application designed to help researchers identify historical or geohistorical refugia using the protocol described by:

Morley, N.E.D., Schneider, C.L., Cahill, J.F., Sullivan, C., Leighton, L.R. Geohistorical data reveal an ice age refugium with implications for modern conservation. Commun Earth Environ 7, 704 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03563-3.

The refuginator package allows users to run the Refuginator dashboard locally through R.

Installation

The most recent stable version of the refuginator package can be downloaded from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) using the following command:

install.packages("refuginator")

The in-development version of the refuginator package can be directly downloaded from Nathaniel Morley’s GitHub repository using the following command:

devtools::install_github("nathanielmorley2000/refuginator")

Launching the Refuginator

The refuginator application be launched by typing the following command into your R console:

refuginator::launchRefuginator()

Further instructions regarding use can be found in the “refuginatorIntro” vignette.

Contact

If there are any questions or issues with this code, please feel free to report an issue on Nathaniel Morley’s GitHub repository or through email at nmorley@ualberta.ca.