std_identifiedBy

Standardize Determiner Names in Biodiversity Records

barRoso::std_identifiedBy()

Description

Cleans and standardizes the identifiedBy field in biodiversity collection data, using the same name-cleaning rules of std_recordedBy(). Each determiner name is formatted with abbreviated initials before the surname (e.g. "Cardoso, D.B.O.S." into "D. B. O. S. Cardoso").

Details

Unlike std_recordedBy(), no additional column is created when there are several determiners. All names are kept in the same cell, each one standardized and joined as "D. Cardoso & L. P. Queiroz" or "A. Pott, V. J. Pott & D. Cardoso".

Before standardizing the names, the function removes information that often comes along with the determiner in the identifiedBy field, such as the prefix "det.", herbarium acronyms in parentheses (e.g. "(MO)"), and determination dates (e.g. "/VI-2011", ", 2006", "18 Jun 1996"). Missing or anonymous determiners are returned as NA.

Arguments

Argument	Description
df	A data frame containing biodiversity records.
colname_identifiedBy	Column name for the determiner (default: "identifiedBy").
rm_original_column	Logical; if TRUE, the original column is removed after cleaning. If FALSE, it is retained with the *Original suffix (default: FALSE).

Value

A data frame with the standardized determiner names.

Examples

df <- read.csv("herbarium_records.csv")
df_clean <- std_identifiedBy(df,
                             colname_identifiedBy = "identifiedBy",
                             rm_original_column = FALSE)