The first version of binomen is now up on CRAN. It provides various taxonomic classes for defining a single taxon, multiple taxa, and a taxonomic data.frame. It is designed as a companion to taxize, where you can get taxonomic data on taxonomic names from the web.

The classes (S3):

  • taxon
  • taxonref
  • taxonrefs
  • binomial
  • grouping (i.e., classification - used different term to avoid conflict with classification in taxize)

For example, the binomial class is defined by a genus, epithet, authority, and optional full species name and canonical version.

binomial("Poa", "annua", authority="L.")

<binomial>
  genus: Poa
  epithet: annua
  canonical:
  species:
  authority: L.

The package has a suite of functions to work on these taxonomic classes:

  • gethier() - get hierarchy from a taxon class
  • scatter() - make each row in taxonomic data.frame (taxondf) a separate taxon object within a single taxa object
  • assemble() - make a taxa object into a taxondf data.frame
  • pick() - pick out one or more taxonomic groups
  • pop() - pop out (drop) one or more taxonomic groups
  • span() - pick a range between two taxonomic groups (inclusive)
  • strain() - filter by taxonomic groups, like dplyr’s filter
  • name() - get the taxon name for each taxonref object
  • uri() - get the reference uri for each taxonref object
  • rank() - get the taxonomic rank for each taxonref object
  • id() - get the reference uri for each taxonref object

The approach in this package I suppose is sort of like split-apply-combine from plyr/dplyr, whereas this is aims to make it easy to do with taxonomic names.

Install

For examples below, you’ll need the development version:

install.packages("binomen")

library("binomen")

Make a taxon

Make a taxon object

(obj <- make_taxon(genus="Poa", epithet="annua", authority="L.",
  family='Poaceae', clazz='Poales', kingdom='Plantae', variety='annua'))
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Poa annua
#>   grouping: 
#>     kingdom: Plantae
#>     clazz: Poales
#>     family: Poaceae
#>     genus: Poa
#>     species: Poa annua
#>     variety: annua

Index to various parts of the object

The binomial

obj$binomial
#> <binomial>
#>   genus: Poa
#>   epithet: annua
#>   canonical: Poa annua
#>   species: Poa annua L.
#>   authority: L.

The authority

obj$binomial$authority
#> [1] "L."

The classification

obj$grouping
#> <grouping>
#>   kingdom: Plantae
#>   clazz: Poales
#>   family: Poaceae
#>   genus: Poa
#>   species: Poa annua
#>   variety: annua

The family

obj$grouping$family
#> <taxonref>
#>   rank: family
#>   name: Poaceae
#>   id: none
#>   uri: none

Subset taxon objects

Get one or more ranks via pick()

obj %>% pick(family)
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Poa annua
#>   grouping: 
#>     family: Poaceae
obj %>% pick(family, genus)
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Poa annua
#>   grouping: 
#>     family: Poaceae
#>     genus: Poa

Drop one or more ranks via pop()

obj %>% pop(family)
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Poa annua
#>   grouping: 
#>     kingdom: Plantae
#>     clazz: Poales
#>     genus: Poa
#>     species: Poa annua
#>     variety: annua
obj %>% pop(family, genus)
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Poa annua
#>   grouping: 
#>     kingdom: Plantae
#>     clazz: Poales
#>     species: Poa annua
#>     variety: annua

Get a range of ranks via span()

obj %>% span(kingdom, family)
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Poa annua
#>   grouping: 
#>     kingdom: Plantae
#>     clazz: Poales
#>     family: Poaceae

Extract classification as a data.frame

gethier(obj)
#>      rank      name
#> 1 kingdom   Plantae
#> 2   clazz    Poales
#> 3  family   Poaceae
#> 4   genus       Poa
#> 5 species Poa annua
#> 6 variety     annua

Taxonomic data.frame’s

Make one

df <- data.frame(order = c('Asterales','Asterales','Fagales','Poales','Poales','Poales'),
  family = c('Asteraceae','Asteraceae','Fagaceae','Poaceae','Poaceae','Poaceae'),
  genus = c('Helianthus','Helianthus','Quercus','Poa','Festuca','Holodiscus'),
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
(df2 <- taxon_df(df))
#>       order     family      genus
#> 1 Asterales Asteraceae Helianthus
#> 2 Asterales Asteraceae Helianthus
#> 3   Fagales   Fagaceae    Quercus
#> 4    Poales    Poaceae        Poa
#> 5    Poales    Poaceae    Festuca
#> 6    Poales    Poaceae Holodiscus

Parse - get rank order via pick()

df2 %>% pick(order)
#>       order
#> 1 Asterales
#> 2 Asterales
#> 3   Fagales
#> 4    Poales
#> 5    Poales
#> 6    Poales

get ranks order, family, and genus via pick()

df2 %>% pick(order, family, genus)
#>       order     family      genus
#> 1 Asterales Asteraceae Helianthus
#> 2 Asterales Asteraceae Helianthus
#> 3   Fagales   Fagaceae    Quercus
#> 4    Poales    Poaceae        Poa
#> 5    Poales    Poaceae    Festuca
#> 6    Poales    Poaceae Holodiscus

get range of names via span(), from rank X to rank Y

df2 %>% span(family, genus)
#>       family      genus
#> 1 Asteraceae Helianthus
#> 2 Asteraceae Helianthus
#> 3   Fagaceae    Quercus
#> 4    Poaceae        Poa
#> 5    Poaceae    Festuca
#> 6    Poaceae Holodiscus

Separate each row into a taxon class (many taxon objects are a taxa class)

scatter(df2)
#> [[1]]
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Helianthus none
#>   grouping: 
#>     order: Asterales
#>     family: Asteraceae
#>     genus: Helianthus
#>     species: Helianthus none
#> 
#> [[2]]
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Helianthus none
#>   grouping: 
#>     order: Asterales
#>     family: Asteraceae
#>     genus: Helianthus
#>     species: Helianthus none
#> 
#> [[3]]
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Quercus none
#>   grouping: 
#>     order: Fagales
#>     family: Fagaceae
#>     genus: Quercus
#>     species: Quercus none
#> 
#> [[4]]
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Poa none
#>   grouping: 
#>     order: Poales
#>     family: Poaceae
#>     genus: Poa
#>     species: Poa none
#> 
#> [[5]]
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Festuca none
#>   grouping: 
#>     order: Poales
#>     family: Poaceae
#>     genus: Festuca
#>     species: Festuca none
#> 
#> [[6]]
#> <taxon>
#>   binomial: Holodiscus none
#>   grouping: 
#>     order: Poales
#>     family: Poaceae
#>     genus: Holodiscus
#>     species: Holodiscus none
#> 
#> attr(,"class")
#> [1] "taxa"

And you can re-assemble a data.frame from the output of scatter() with assemble()

out <- scatter(df2)
assemble(out)
#>       order     family      genus         species
#> 1 Asterales Asteraceae Helianthus Helianthus none
#> 2 Asterales Asteraceae Helianthus Helianthus none
#> 3   Fagales   Fagaceae    Quercus    Quercus none
#> 4    Poales    Poaceae        Poa        Poa none
#> 5    Poales    Poaceae    Festuca    Festuca none
#> 6    Poales    Poaceae Holodiscus Holodiscus none

Thoughts?

I’m really curious what people think of binomen. I’m not sure how useful this will be in the wild. Try it. Let me know. Thanks much :)