Plotting multiple series (scatter line) with same x axis on one plot

Question

I have a compositional data set. I have a set of columns (samples) which contain percentage data. Each row (channel-diameter in my case) is therefore a particular variable that each sample has a percentage of. E.g.

Channel diameter (um)   sample2 sample3 sample8 sample9 sample17
0.375198    0.0365797   0.0424338   0.0158648   0.02944 0.0157091
0.411878    0.0647681   0.0750611   0.0280678   0.052028    0.0278099
0.452145    0.0956633   0.111489    0.0415484   0.0770551   0.0410209
0.496347    0.137893    0.162464    0.0601572   0.111755    0.0589772
0.544872    0.175746    0.210556    0.0771818   0.143911    0.0748565
0.59814 0.210752    0.257403    0.0932129   0.174446    0.089273
0.656615    0.244288    0.304665    0.10884 0.204511    0.102797
0.720807    0.278281    0.354677    0.124906    0.235612    0.11622
0.791275    0.31069 0.405324    0.140553    0.266354    0.128626
0.868632    0.339832    0.454374    0.15495 0.295125    0.139238
0.953552    0.365523    0.500985    0.167898    0.321535    0.147978
1.04677 0.387791    0.544478    0.179338    0.345493    0.154899
1.14911 0.407715    0.585383    0.189749    0.367873    0.160534
1.26145 0.424342    0.622144    0.1988  0.388226    0.164562
1.38477 0.437851    0.654347    0.206637    0.406776    0.167147
1.52015 0.448418    0.681951    0.213521    0.424175    0.168487
1.66876 0.457694    0.706822    0.220449    0.442197    0.169372
1.8319  0.466729    0.730714    0.228307    0.462539    0.170336
2.011   0.476516    0.755269    0.237889    0.48627 0.171799
2.2076  0.487906    0.782015    0.249849    0.514036    0.174083
2.42342 0.501736    0.81248 0.264752    0.546016    0.177432
2.66033 0.51929 0.848837    0.283331    0.582431    0.182235
2.92042 0.541324    0.892608    0.305976    0.62241 0.188562
3.20592 0.568374    0.944571    0.332691    0.663758    0.196293
3.51934 0.599897    1.00394 0.362726    0.702966    0.204848
3.8634  0.635522    1.06984 0.395209    0.736726    0.213754
4.2411  0.674643    1.14148 0.429266    0.762942    0.222574
4.65572 0.717242    1.21878 0.464337    0.780965    0.231205
5.11087 0.76318 1.30134 0.499874    0.791079    0.23963
5.61052 0.812207    1.38818 0.535257    0.794286    0.247904
6.15902 0.863791    1.478   0.570021    0.793137    0.256198
6.76114 0.917491    1.56991 0.604296    0.792304    0.264896
7.42212 0.973638    1.66349 0.638955    0.797465    0.274726
8.14773 1.03178 1.75579 0.674653    0.812076    0.286046
8.94427 1.09013 1.83889 0.710974    0.834453    0.298613
9.81869 1.14346 1.89853 0.745919    0.857295    0.310908
10.7786 1.18666 1.92001 0.77754 0.871976    0.321507
11.8323 1.21701 1.89513 0.805316    0.873849    0.329678
12.9891 1.23962 1.82973 0.830937    0.865868    0.336774
14.2589 1.26532 1.74176 0.855741    0.855011    0.345067
15.6529 1.30625 1.65369 0.877552    0.846228    0.35632
17.1832 1.37039 1.58411 0.889331    0.838007    0.370876
18.863  1.45674 1.54142 0.881201    0.822809    0.387127
20.7071 1.55939 1.52665 0.846803    0.793656    0.403864
22.7315 1.6691  1.53505 0.7877  0.749241    0.42062
24.9538 1.78027 1.56136 0.714575    0.696582    0.438749
27.3934 1.89095 1.60072 0.642402    0.646703    0.459818
30.0714 2.00065 1.64851 0.583683    0.608531    0.484033
33.0113 2.10867 1.70138 0.544639    0.585721    0.50996
36.2385 2.21043 1.75647 0.52405 0.57563 0.534436
39.7813 2.30025 1.81358 0.51599 0.572488    0.554934
43.6704 2.37323 1.87431 0.512943    0.570144    0.570926
47.9397 2.42843 1.9405  0.509019    0.564741    0.584767
52.6264 2.47132 2.01249 0.502374    0.556494    0.60136
57.7713 2.51141 2.08592 0.494986    0.549106    0.626145
63.4192 2.55913 2.15193 0.491467    0.549135    0.663665
69.6192 2.62015 2.19769 0.496593    0.563727    0.716063
76.4253 2.69185 2.2104  0.513592    0.598638    0.782837
83.8969 2.7645  2.18362 0.543656    0.656535    0.861711
92.0988 2.826   2.12191 0.585723    0.735146    0.949471
101.103 2.86765 2.04062 0.637396    0.827534    1.04325
110.987 2.88366 1.95552 0.695157    0.923739    1.1402
121.837 2.86566 1.87145 0.756528    1.01592 1.23771
133.748 2.79489 1.77514 0.820962    1.10124 1.33218
146.824 2.64552 1.64295 0.891174    1.18226 1.41966
161.177 2.39707 1.45793 0.970232    1.26132 1.49497
176.935 2.05403 1.2272  1.05834 1.3359  1.55358
194.232 1.65431 0.983299    1.14894 1.39739 1.59279
213.221 1.25961 0.76806 1.2303  1.43626 1.61461
234.066 0.932009    0.612117    1.29251 1.45138 1.62797
256.948 0.708748    0.526414    1.33762 1.45415 1.64839
282.068 0.596048    0.507822    1.3814  1.46446 1.69346
309.644 0.577959    0.544827    1.44754 1.49861 1.77678
339.916 0.628404    0.619653    1.55335 1.5589  1.90214
373.147 0.712328    0.706958    1.70468 1.63116 2.06529
409.626 0.785738    0.771807    1.88764 1.69265 2.25554
449.672 0.808987    0.78167 2.07784 1.72831 2.46479
493.633 0.763715    0.72189 2.24938 1.74795 2.69133
541.892 0.665773    0.613547    2.40785 1.79079 2.94904
594.869 0.562534    0.5129  2.57317 1.90894 3.24541
653.025 0.501094    0.468972    2.78062 2.1497  3.57554
716.866 0.509195    0.50887 3.03373 2.53054 3.89743
786.949 0.584288    0.63571 3.33205 3.02726 4.16047
863.883 0.682625    0.805693    3.64631 3.56815 4.31705
948.338 0.736664    0.946139    3.93691 4.04493 4.34466
1041.05 0.679724    0.960431    4.14637 4.34887 4.24767
1142.83 0.462905    0.717301    4.29187 4.39208 4.08343
1254.55 0.212328    0.364022    4.3391  4.11532 3.85551
1377.2  0.0459161   0.0848405   4.29583 3.5172  3.56707
1511.84 0.00420859  0.00868247  4.08845 2.63958 3.15498
1659.64 0   0   3.86265 1.92542 2.794
1821.89 0   0   3.64037 1.16644 2.40284
2000                    

I would like to plot each sample as a scatter(line) on the same graph. X axis would be channel diameter (the rows), and y axis would be the percentage data that's in the columns.

Most things I've tried don't seem to recognize the first column as the x axis value.

Answer 1

Create an empty plot:

plot(x=NA, y=NA, xlim=c(0,1), ylim=c(0,1), 
     xlab="My X Label", ylab="My Y Label", 
     main="My Title")

The add your lines one at a time:

for(i in 2:ncol(df)) {
    lines(x=df[,1], y=df[,i])
}

This code assumes your data.frame with your data is called df and that you want to plot all columns as y variables except the first column which you treat as your x variable.