About barRoso

Open-source tools for managing and standardizing herbarium specimen records

Overview

barRoso (Biodiversity Analysis and Record Reconciliation for Organizing Specimen Observations) is an R package that streamlines biodiversity data cleaning, integration, and reconciliation, particularly for herbarium records. The toolkit supports workflows from data curation to label production, helping botanists, curators, and researchers analyze plant specimen collections more efficiently.

Named in honor of Graziela Maciel Barroso, one of Brazil’s most respected botanists, the name barRoso also nods to its native programming environment—R.

The package was originally developed for the JABOT Virtual Herbarium, maintained by the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, but it is generalizable to other biodiversity repositories such as GBIF, SEINet, REFLORA, and speciesLink. The package was originally developed to support the cleaning and reconciliation of plant specimen records retrieved from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), but its flexible design makes it broadly applicable to other biodiversity data sources. These include national and institutional repositories such as the JABOT Virtual Herbarium, maintained by the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden and REFLORA, as well as SEINet and speciesLink.

Package Description

Package: barRoso
Type: R Package
Version: 1.0.0

Author and Maintainer: Domingos Cardoso (@DBOSlab ORCID domingoscardoso@jbrj.gov.br)

Package Features

✅ Clean and standardize collector names, record numbers, and geographic fields
✅ Reconcile records from multiple herbarium sources (e.g., GBIF, JABOT, speciesLink)
✅ Flag and optionally remove duplicated specimen records
✅ Generate herbarium labels from field books with embedded maps and taxonomic authorities
✅ Integrate with taxonomic reference tools like LCVP and lcvplants

How to Contribute

We welcome community contributions:

💬 Report bugs or feature requests via GitHub Issues 🔧 Submit pull requests with improvements or new features 🌱 Suggest new functionality or integration ideas

License

This package is released under the MIT License, supporting open science and data accessibility for biodiversity research.

Acknowledgements

Development of barRoso is led by the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden (JBRJ). I also gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil’s National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, and FINEP - Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Brazil’s Funding Authority for Studies and Projects. I honor Graziela Maciel Barroso’s legacy in taxonomy and herbaria through this tool.

--- title: "About barRoso" subtitle: "Open-source tools for managing and standardizing herbarium specimen records" format: html: toc: true --- <style> body { position: relative; } .watermark { position: fixed; bottom: 50px; right: 50px; opacity: 0.15; z-index: -1; width: 300px; } .background-overlay { position: fixed; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); z-index: -1; } </style> <img src='/figures/barroso_background.png' class='watermark' alt='barroso logo watermark'> ## Overview `barRoso` (Biodiversity Analysis and Record Reconciliation for Organizing Specimen Observations) is an R package that streamlines biodiversity data cleaning, integration, and reconciliation, particularly for herbarium records. The toolkit supports workflows from data curation to label production, helping botanists, curators, and researchers analyze plant specimen collections more efficiently. Named in honor of [Graziela Maciel Barroso](https://www.gov.br/jbrj/pt-br/assuntos/colecoes/arquivistica/graziela-maciel-barroso), one of Brazil's most respected botanists, the name **barRoso** also nods to its native programming environment—**R**. The package was originally developed for the [JABOT Virtual Herbarium](https://jabot.jbrj.gov.br), maintained by the [Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden](https://www.gov.br/jbrj), but it is generalizable to other biodiversity repositories such as [GBIF](https://www.gbif.org), [SEINet](https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet), [REFLORA](https://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/reflora), and [speciesLink](https://specieslink.net). The package was originally developed to support the cleaning and reconciliation of plant specimen records retrieved from the [Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)](https://www.gbif.org), but its flexible design makes it broadly applicable to other biodiversity data sources. These include national and institutional repositories such as the [JABOT Virtual Herbarium](https://jabot.jbrj.gov.br), maintained by the [Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden](https://www.gov.br/jbrj) and [REFLORA](https://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/reflora), as well as [SEINet](https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet) and [speciesLink](https://specieslink.net). ## Package Description Package: `barRoso` Type: R Package Version: 1.0.0 Author and Maintainer: Domingos Cardoso ([\@DBOSlab](https://github.com/DBOSlab) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7072-2656) <domingoscardoso@jbrj.gov.br>) ### Package Features ✅ Clean and standardize collector names, record numbers, and geographic fields ✅ Reconcile records from multiple herbarium sources (e.g., GBIF, JABOT, speciesLink) ✅ Flag and optionally remove duplicated specimen records ✅ Generate herbarium labels from field books with embedded maps and taxonomic authorities ✅ Integrate with taxonomic reference tools like [LCVP](https://github.com/idiv-biodiversity/LCVP) and [lcvplants](https://idiv-biodiversity.github.io/lcvplants) ## How to Contribute We welcome community contributions: 💬 Report bugs or feature requests via [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/DBOSlab/barRoso/issues) 🔧 Submit pull requests with improvements or new features 🌱 Suggest new functionality or integration ideas ## License This package is released under the [MIT License](/LICENSE.md), supporting open science and data accessibility for biodiversity research. ## Acknowledgements Development of `barRoso` is led by the [Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden (JBRJ)](https://www.gov.br/jbrj). I also gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by [CNPq - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico](https://www.gov.br/cnpq/pt-br), Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, and [FINEP - Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos](https://www.gov.br/finep/pt-br), Brazil's Funding Authority for Studies and Projects. I honor Graziela Maciel Barroso’s legacy in taxonomy and herbaria through this tool.