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The goal of taxadb is to provide fast,
consistent access to taxonomic data, supporting common tasks
such as resolving taxonomic names to identifiers, looking up higher
classification ranks of given species, or returning a list of all
species below a given rank. These tasks are particularly common when
synthesizing data across large species assemblies, such as combining
occurrence records with trait records.
Existing approaches to these problems typically rely on web APIs,
which can make them impractical for work with large numbers of species
or in more complex pipelines. Queries and returned formats also differ
across the different taxonomic authorities, making tasks that query
multiple authorities particularly complex. taxadb creates a
local database of most readily available taxonomic authorities,
each of which is transformed into consistent, standard, and
researcher-friendly tabular formats.
To get started, install from CRAN
install.packages("taxadb")or install the development version directly from GitHub:
devtools::install_github("ropensci/taxadb")library(taxadb)
library(dplyr) # Used to illustrate how a typical workflow combines nicely with `dplyr`Create a local copy of the (current) Catalogue of Life database:
td_create("col")Read in the species list used by the Breeding Bird Survey:
bbs_species_list <- system.file("extdata/bbs.tsv", package="taxadb")
bbs <- read.delim(bbs_species_list)Two core functions are get_ids() and
get_names(). These functions take a vector of names or ids
(respectively), and return a vector of ids or names (respectively). For
instance, we can use this to attempt to resolve all the bird names in
the Breeding Bird Survey against the Catalogue of Life:
birds <- bbs %>%
select(species) %>%
mutate(id = get_ids(species, "col"))
#> Joining with `by = join_by(scientificName)`
head(birds, 10)
#> species id
#> 1 Dendrocygna autumnalis COL:34Q2Z
#> 2 Dendrocygna bicolor COL:34Q32
#> 3 Anser canagicus <NA>
#> 4 Anser caerulescens <NA>
#> 5 Chen caerulescens (blue form) <NA>
#> 6 Anser rossii <NA>
#> 7 Anser albifrons COL:679WV
#> 8 Branta bernicla COL:N749
#> 9 Branta bernicla nigricans <NA>
#> 10 Branta hutchinsii COL:N74BNote that some names cannot be resolved to an identifier. This can
occur because of miss-spellings, non-standard formatting, or the use of
a synonym not recognized by the naming provider. Names that cannot be
uniquely resolved because they are known synonyms of multiple different
species will also return NA. The filter_name
filtering functions can help us resolve this last case (see below).
get_ids() returns the IDs of accepted names, that is
dwc:AcceptedNameUsageIDs. We can resolve the IDs into
accepted names:
birds %>%
mutate(accepted_name = get_names(id, "col")) %>%
head()
#> species id accepted_name
#> 1 Dendrocygna autumnalis COL:34Q2Z Dendrocygna autumnalis
#> 2 Dendrocygna bicolor COL:34Q32 Dendrocygna bicolor
#> 3 Anser canagicus <NA> <NA>
#> 4 Anser caerulescens <NA> <NA>
#> 5 Chen caerulescens (blue form) <NA> <NA>
#> 6 Anser rossii <NA> <NA>This illustrates that some of our names, e.g. Dendrocygna bicolor are accepted in the Catalogue of Life, while others, Anser canagicus are known synonyms of a different accepted name: Chen canagica. Resolving synonyms and accepted names to identifiers helps us avoid the possible miss-matches we could have when the same species is known by two different names.
Local access to taxonomic data tables lets us do much more than look
up names and ids. A family of filter_* functions in
taxadb help us work directly with subsets of the taxonomic
data. As we noted above, this can be useful in resolving certain
ambiguous names.
For instance, Agrostis caespitosa does not resolve to an identifier in ITIS:
get_ids("Agrostis caespitosa", "itis")
#> Joining with `by = join_by(scientificName)`
#> Warning: Found 5 possible identifiers for Agrostis caespitosa.
#> Returning NA. Try filter_name('Agrostis caespitosa', '') to resolve manually.
#> [1] NAUsing filter_name(), we find this is because the name
resolves not to zero matches, but is a known synonym to more than one
accepted name (as indicated by the accepted name usage id)
filter_name('Agrostis caespitosa', 'itis')
#> # A tibble: 6 × 15
#> taxonID scien…¹ taxon…² accep…³ taxon…⁴ updat…⁵ kingdom phylum class order
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 ITIS:785430 Agrost… species ITIS:5… synonym 2010-1… Plantae <NA> Magn… Poal…
#> 2 ITIS:785431 Agrost… species ITIS:4… synonym 2010-1… Plantae <NA> Magn… Poal…
#> 3 ITIS:785432 Agrost… species ITIS:4… synonym 2010-1… Plantae <NA> Magn… Poal…
#> 4 ITIS:785433 Agrost… species ITIS:7… synonym 2010-1… Plantae <NA> Magn… Poal…
#> 5 ITIS:785434 Agrost… species ITIS:5… synonym 2010-1… Plantae <NA> Magn… Poal…
#> 6 ITIS:785435 Agrost… species ITIS:7… synonym 2010-1… Plantae <NA> Magn… Poal…
#> # … with 5 more variables: family <chr>, genus <chr>, specificEpithet <chr>,
#> # infraspecificEpithet <chr>, vernacularName <chr>, and abbreviated variable
#> # names ¹scientificName, ²taxonRank, ³acceptedNameUsageID, ⁴taxonomicStatus,
#> # ⁵update_dateWe can resolve the scientific name to the acceptedNameUsage using
get_names() on the accepted IDs: (These also
correspond to the genus and specificEpithet column, as the
classification is always given only based on acceptedNameUsageID).
filter_name("Agrostis caespitosa") %>%
mutate(acceptedNameUsage = get_names(acceptedNameUsageID)) %>%
select(scientificName, taxonomicStatus, acceptedNameUsage, acceptedNameUsageID)
#> # A tibble: 6 × 4
#> scientificName taxonomicStatus acceptedNameUsage acceptedNameU…¹
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 Agrostis caespitosa synonym Deschampsia cespitosa ITIS:502001
#> 2 Agrostis caespitosa synonym Agrostis stolonifera ITIS:40400
#> 3 Agrostis caespitosa synonym Agrostis stolonifera ITIS:40400
#> 4 Agrostis caespitosa synonym Calamagrostis preslii ITIS:782718
#> 5 Agrostis caespitosa synonym Muhlenbergia torreyi ITIS:503886
#> 6 Agrostis caespitosa synonym Muhlenbergia quadridentata ITIS:783883
#> # … with abbreviated variable name ¹acceptedNameUsageIDSimilar functions filter_id, filter_rank,
and filter_common take IDs, scientific ranks, or common
names, respectively. Here, we can get taxonomic data on all bird names
in the Catalogue of Life:
filter_rank(name = "Aves", rank = "class", provider = "col")
#> # A tibble: 10,598 × 25
#> taxonID accepte…¹ scien…² taxon…³ taxon…⁴ kingdom phylum class order family
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 COL:59ZVZ COL:59ZVZ Tyto l… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Stri… Tyton…
#> 2 COL:64X3G COL:64X3G Aegoli… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Stri… Strig…
#> 3 COL:5XGW7 COL:5XGW7 Celeus… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Pici… Picid…
#> 4 COL:4NGTM COL:4NGTM Psepho… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Psit… Psitt…
#> 5 COL:3C9TF COL:3C9TF Eulamp… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Apod… Troch…
#> 6 COL:6CZN3 COL:6CZN3 Discos… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Apod… Troch…
#> 7 COL:4S4FP COL:4S4FP Rhaphi… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Apod… Apodi…
#> 8 COL:7TCSL COL:7TCSL Dryoba… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Pici… Picid…
#> 9 COL:3HT3X COL:3HT3X Gymnop… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Colu… Colum…
#> 10 COL:3Z72J COL:3Z72J Melane… accept… species Animal… Chord… Aves Pici… Picid…
#> # … with 10,588 more rows, 15 more variables: genus <chr>,
#> # specificEpithet <chr>, infraspecificEpithet <chr>, cultivarEpithet <chr>,
#> # datasetID <chr>, namePublishedIn <chr>, nameAccordingTo <chr>,
#> # taxonRemarks <chr>, nomenclaturalStatus <chr>, nomenclaturalCode <chr>,
#> # parentNameUsageID <chr>, originalNameUsageID <chr>,
#> # `dcterms:references` <chr>, language <chr>, vernacularName <chr>, and
#> # abbreviated variable names ¹acceptedNameUsageID, ²scientificName, …Combining these with dplyr functions can make it easy to
explore this data: for instance, which families have the most
species?
filter_rank(name = "Aves", rank = "class", provider = "col") %>%
filter(taxonomicStatus == "accepted", taxonRank=="species") %>%
group_by(family) %>%
count(sort = TRUE) %>%
head()
#> # A tibble: 6 × 2
#> # Groups: family [6]
#> family n
#> <chr> <int>
#> 1 Tyrannidae 401
#> 2 Thraupidae 374
#> 3 Psittacidae 370
#> 4 Trochilidae 361
#> 5 Columbidae 344
#> 6 Muscicapidae 314filter_* functions by default return in-memory data
frames. Because they are filtering functions, they return a subset of
the full data which matches a given query (names, ids, ranks, etc), so
the returned data.frames are smaller than the full record of a naming
provider. Working directly with the SQL connection to the MonetDBLite
database gives us access to all the data. The taxa_tbl()
function provides this connection:
taxa_tbl("col")
#> # Source: table<v22.12_dwc_col> [?? x 25]
#> # Database: DuckDB 0.7.0 [unknown@Linux 5.17.15-76051715-generic:R 4.2.2/:memory:]
#> taxonID accepte…¹ scien…² taxon…³ taxon…⁴ kingdom phylum class order family
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 COL:3L3RS COL:3L3RS Hersil… accept… species Animal… Arthr… <NA> Aran… Hersi…
#> 2 COL:6MTNS COL:6MTNS Idiotr… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Helot…
#> 3 COL:39VC7 COL:39VC7 Enitha… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Noton…
#> 4 COL:6LHWM COL:6LHWM Heleoc… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Nauco…
#> 5 COL:38PQV COL:38PQV Ectemn… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Corix…
#> 6 COL:73VN6 COL:73VN6 Neomac… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Nauco…
#> 7 COL:6MKPW COL:6MKPW Hydrot… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Helot…
#> 8 COL:5FMGW COL:5FMGW rotumai accept… subspe… <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA>
#> 9 COL:3L5C7 COL:3L5C7 Hesper… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Corix…
#> 10 COL:SVTT COL:SVTT Cercot… accept… species Animal… Arthr… Inse… Hemi… Nepid…
#> # … with more rows, 15 more variables: genus <chr>, specificEpithet <chr>,
#> # infraspecificEpithet <chr>, cultivarEpithet <chr>, datasetID <chr>,
#> # namePublishedIn <chr>, nameAccordingTo <chr>, taxonRemarks <chr>,
#> # nomenclaturalStatus <chr>, nomenclaturalCode <chr>,
#> # parentNameUsageID <chr>, originalNameUsageID <chr>,
#> # `dcterms:references` <chr>, language <chr>, vernacularName <chr>, and
#> # abbreviated variable names ¹acceptedNameUsageID, ²scientificName, …We can still use most familiar dplyr verbs to perform
common tasks. For instance: which species has the most known
synonyms?
taxa_tbl("itis") %>%
count(acceptedNameUsageID, sort=TRUE)
#> # Source: SQL [?? x 2]
#> # Database: DuckDB 0.7.0 [unknown@Linux 5.17.15-76051715-generic:R 4.2.2/:memory:]
#> # Ordered by: desc(n)
#> acceptedNameUsageID n
#> <chr> <dbl>
#> 1 ITIS:50 462
#> 2 ITIS:983681 303
#> 3 ITIS:983691 286
#> 4 ITIS:983714 237
#> 5 ITIS:983710 231
#> 6 ITIS:798259 145
#> 7 ITIS:24921 144
#> 8 ITIS:527684 134
#> 9 ITIS:505191 126
#> 10 ITIS:504874 123
#> # … with more rowsHowever, unlike the filter_* functions which return
convenient in-memory tables, this is still a remote connection. This
means that direct access using the taxa_tbl() function (or
directly accessing the database connection using
td_connect()) is more low-level and requires greater care.
For instance, we cannot just add a
%>% mutate(acceptedNameUsage = get_names(acceptedNameUsageID))
to the above, because get_names does not work on a remote
collection. Instead, we would first need to use a collect()
to pull the summary table into memory. Users familiar with remote
databases in dplyr will find using taxa_tbl()
directly to be convenient and fast, while other users may find the
filter_* approach to be more intuitive.
See richer examples the package Tutorial.
Learn about the underlying data sources and formats in Data Sources
Get better performance by selecting an alternative database backend engines.
Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.
These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
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