faunabr

The Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil is the result of the collaborative efforts of over 500 zoologists, each specializing in various animal groups native to Brazil. This comprehensive database offers detailed and standardized ecological descriptions, nomenclatural information, geographic distribution, and identification keys for both native and non-native animals found in Brazil.

The faunabr package provides a suite of functions designed to retrieve, filter, and spatialize data from the Fauna do Brasil dataset.

Overview of functions

Download and import Fauna do Brasil Dataset

• fauna_version(): Check if you have the latest version of Fauna do Brasil dataset available.
• get_faunabr(): Download the latest version of Fauna do Brasil database.
• load_faunabr(): Load Fauna do Brasil database.

Check names

• check_fauna_names(): Check species names.
• extract_binomial(): Extract the binomial name (Genus + specific epithet) from a complete Scientific Name.
• fauna_synonym(): Retrieve synonyms for species.

Select or subset species

• fauna_attributes(): Get available attributes to filter species.
• fauna_by_vernacular(): Search for taxa using vernacular names/common names.
• select_fauna(): Select species based on its characteristics and distribution.
• subset_fauna(): Extract a subset of species from Fauna do Brasil database.

Spatialize distribution and use Fauna do Brasil to flag records

• fauna_pam(): Get a presence-absence matrix of species based on its distribution in brazilian states and/or countries
• filter_faunabr(): Identify records outside natural ranges according to Fauna do Brasil.
• fauna_spat_occ(): Get Spatial polygons (SpatVectors) of species based on its distribution (States and countries) according to Fauna do Brasil

Installation

Install development version from GitHub

You can install the development version of faunabr from GitHub with:

if(!require(remotes)){
    install.packages("remotes")
}

if(!require(faunabr)){
remotes::install_github('wevertonbio/faunabr')}

library(faunabr)

Before downloading the data available in the Fauna do Brasil, we need to create a folder to save the data:

#Creating a folder in a temporary directory
#Replace 'file.path(tempdir(), "faunabr")' by a path folder to be create in your computer
my_dir <- file.path(file.path(tempdir(), "faunabr"))
dir.create(my_dir)

You can now utilize the get_faunabr function to retrieve the most recent version of the data:

get_faunabr(output_dir = my_dir, #directory to save the data
            data_version = "latest", #get the most recent version available
            overwrite = T) #Overwrite data, if it exists

You also have the option to download an older, specific version of the Fauna do Brasil dataset. To explore the available versions, please refer to this link. For downloading a particular version, simply replace ‘latest’ with the desired version number. For example:

get_faunabr(output_dir = my_dir, #directory to save the data
            data_version = "1.10", #Version 1.10, published on 2024-02-01
            overwrite = T) #Overwrite data, if it exists

Loading data

In order to use the other functions of the package, you need to load the data into your environment. To achieve this, utilize the load_faunabr() function. By default, the function will automatically search for the latest available version in your directory. However, you have the option to specify a particular version using the data_version parameter. Additionally, you can choose between two versions of the data: the ‘short’ version (containing the 19 columns required for run the other functions of the package) or the ‘complete’ version (with all original 31 columns). The function imports the ‘short’ version by default.

#Load the short version
bf <- load_fauna(data_dir = my_dir,
                   data_version = "latest",
                   type = "short") #short

Package website

See the package website (https://wevertonbio.github.io/faunabr/) for further functions explanation and vignettes.