reflora_indets

Retrieve indeterminate specimens from REFLORA collections
refloraR::reflora_indets()

Description

Retrieves occurrence records for indeterminate specimens (e.g., identified only to family or genus level) from the REFLORA Virtual Herbarium hosted by the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden. The function automatically downloads and parses Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) files, applies optional filters by taxon, herbarium, state, and year, and exports the results if desired. All returned records include direct links to specimen images (column 'bibliographicCitation') and, when available, high-resolution download URLs (column 'associatedMedia').

Details

This function supports downloading and processing Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) files directly from the REFLORA repository. It allows for flexible filtering by taxon, herbarium, locality (Brazilian states), and collection year(s). The level parameter enables filtering for indeterminate records such as those identified only to 'FAMILY' or 'GENUS' rank. The function uses helper functions like .arg_check_herbarium() and .filter_occur_df() to validate inputs and refine the occurrence records. If path is not provided, the function will automatically manage downloading and storing fresh DwC-A archives.

Arguments

Argument Description
level Character vector. Filter by taxonomic level. Accepted values: "FAMILY", "GENUS", or both. Defaults to NULL to include all indeterminate ranks.
herbarium Character vector. Herbarium codes (e.g., "RB", "SP") in uppercase. Use NULL to include all herbaria.
repatriated Logical. If FALSE, skips downloading records from REFLORA-associated herbaria that have been repatriated. Default is TRUE. Use reflora_summary() to check which collections are repatriated.
taxon Character vector. Specific taxon names to filter by (e.g., "Fabaceae").
state Character vector. Brazilian state full name or abbreviations (e.g., "BA", "SP") to filter by locality.
recordYear Character or numeric vector. A single year (e.g., "2001") or a range (e.g., c("2000", "2022")).
reorder Character vector. Reorder output by columns. Defaults to: c("herbarium", "taxa", "collector", "area", "year").
path Character. Path to existing REFLORA dwca files. If NULL, downloads fresh data.
updates Logical. If TRUE (default), checks for updated DwC-A files from REFLORA.
verbose Logical. If TRUE (default), prints progress messages to the console.
save Logical. If TRUE (default), saves the results to a CSV file.
dir Character. Directory path to save output files. Default: "reflora_indets".
filename Character. Name of the output file (without extension). Default: "reflora_indets_search".

Value

A data.frame containing filtered specimen records for the selected indeterminate specimens and criteria. If save = TRUE, a CSV file with the results will be written to the specified dir, and a log.txt file will be created or appended in the same directory summarizing the download session and key statistics (total records, breakdowns by herbarium, family, genus, country, and state).

Examples

# Retrieve indeterminate records for Fabaceae and Ochnaceae from all herbaria
reflora_indets(taxon = c("Fabaceae", "Ochnaceae"),
               level = "FAMILY",
               save = TRUE,
               dir = "reflora_indets",
               filename = "fabaceae_ochnaceae_records")

# Filter by specific herbarium and state
reflora_indets(taxon = "Fabaceae",
               herbarium = "RB",
               state = c("BA", "MG"),
               recordYear = c("1990", "2022"))