flora_get_children_taxa

Get child taxa from Flora e Funga do Brasil

floraR::flora_get_children_taxa()

Description

Returns all child taxa (species, subspecies, varieties, etc.) for a given taxonomic name at a specified rank. Useful for getting all species in a genus, all genera in a family, etc.

Details

The function first finds the parent taxon, then returns all children that have the parent’s taxonID in their lineage.

Child rank behavior:

• If child_rank = NULL: Returns ALL descendant ranks
• If child_rank = "species": Returns only species (direct children)
• If child_rank = "subspecies": Returns only subspecies

Arguments

Argument	Description
taxon_name	Character. Scientific name to search for (e.g., “Luetzelburgia”, “Fabaceae”, “Magnoliopsida”).
rank	Character. The taxonomic rank of the input name. Options: "class", "order", "family", "genus", "species". Default is "genus".
child_rank	Character or NULL. The taxonomic rank(s) to return as children. If a single rank is provided (e.g., "species"), returns only that rank. If NULL (default), returns ALL descendant ranks (e.g., for a genus: species, subspecies, varieties, etc.). Options: "class", "order", "family", "genus", "species", "subspecies".
include_synonyms	Logical. If TRUE, includes synonym names (taxonomicStatus == "SINONIMO") in addition to accepted names. Default is FALSE.
version	Character. FFB dataset version to use. Defaults to "latest". Passed to flora_download and flora_parse.
rm_flora_database	Logical. If TRUE, the downloaded FFB database folder ("flora_download") is deleted after the search is complete. If FALSE (default), the database is kept on disk. Keeping the database is recommended because subsequent searches will reuse the existing download, checking if the stored version matches the requested version. If the stored version is outdated or different from the requested version, the function automatically re-downloads the correct version. This caching behavior significantly speeds up repeated searches.
verbose	Logical. If TRUE (default), prints informative progress messages during parsing. If FALSE, runs quietly.

Value

A data frame containing child taxa that match the requested parent taxon after the applied filters.

Examples

# Get all species in a genus (direct children)
species <- flora_get_children_taxa(
  taxon_name = "Luetzelburgia",
  rank = "genus",
  child_rank = "species"
)

# Get ALL descendants (species, subspecies, varieties)
all_descendants <- flora_get_children_taxa(
  taxon_name = "Luetzelburgia",
  rank = "genus",
  child_rank = NULL
)

# Get all genera in a family (including synonyms)
genera <- flora_get_children_taxa(
  taxon_name = "Fabaceae",
  rank = "family",
  child_rank = "genus",
  include_synonyms = TRUE
)