In one of my previous posts, I showed how to use the Taxonstand package to automatically detect spelling mistakes in taxon names. This time, I demonstrate taxonomic cleaning in the Global Names Resolver via the taxize package. In addition, I explain why I prefer a semi-automatic over an automatic approach when cleaning taxon names.
Some biologist must collectively spend dozens of hours in their life starring at the screen, polishing up species names. It's important to get it right, you know. A simple spelling error in a species name and you have a mess: your data won't merge with another database. Or even worse: once published, the spelling error will be quickly sniffed out by many generations of taxonomically-savy peers. For my first thesis, I spend hours comparing taxonomy and spelling with books and online databases. Luckily these days are over - thanks to some recent R packages. Take for example the taxonstand package in R. |
AuthorI am a plant ecologist and post-doctoral fellow at Masaryk University. Archives
December 2017
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