expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data

Abstract Premise Data on plant distribution and diversity from natural history collections and taxonomic databases are increasingly becoming available online as exemplified by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's Plants of the World Online (POWO) database. This growing accumulation of biodiversity...

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Main Authors: Débora C. Zuanny, Bruno Vilela, Peter W. Moonlight, Tiina E. Särkinen, Domingos Cardoso
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2024-11-01
Series:Applications in Plant Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11609
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author Débora C. Zuanny
Bruno Vilela
Peter W. Moonlight
Tiina E. Särkinen
Domingos Cardoso
author_facet Débora C. Zuanny
Bruno Vilela
Peter W. Moonlight
Tiina E. Särkinen
Domingos Cardoso
author_sort Débora C. Zuanny
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Premise Data on plant distribution and diversity from natural history collections and taxonomic databases are increasingly becoming available online as exemplified by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's Plants of the World Online (POWO) database. This growing accumulation of biodiversity information requires an advance in bioinformatic tools for accessing and processing the massive data for use in downstream science. We present herein expowo, an open‐source package that facilitates extracting and using botanical data from POWO. Methods and Results The expowo package is implemented in R and designed to handle the entire vascular plant tree of life. It includes functions to readily distill taxonomic and distributional information about all families, genera, or species of vascular plants. It outputs a complete list of species in each genus of any plant family, with the associated original publication, synonyms, and distribution, and plots global maps of species richness at the country and botanical country levels, as well as graphs displaying species‐discovery accumulation curves and nomenclatural changes over time. To demonstrate expowo's strengths in producing easy‐to‐handle outputs, we also show empirical examples from a set of biodiverse countries and representative species‐rich and ecologically important angiosperm families. Conclusions By harnessing bioinformatic tools that accommodate varying levels of R programming proficiency, expowo functions assist users who have limited R programming expertise in efficiently distilling specific botanical information from online sources and producing maps and graphics for the further interpretation of biogeographic and taxonomic patterns.
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spelling doaj-art-a8730eb2a88342bc9e706a11fb535e412024-12-02T15:08:29ZengWileyApplications in Plant Sciences2168-04502024-11-01126n/an/a10.1002/aps3.11609expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution dataDébora C. Zuanny0Bruno Vilela1Peter W. Moonlight2Tiina E. Särkinen3Domingos Cardoso4Instituto de Biologia Universidade Federal da Bahia, Rua Barão de Jeremoabo s.n., Ondina Salvador 40170‐115 Bahia BrazilInstituto de Biologia Universidade Federal da Bahia, Rua Barão de Jeremoabo s.n., Ondina Salvador 40170‐115 Bahia BrazilSchool of Botany Trinity College Dublin 1 College Green, Dublin 2 IrelandRoyal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 20a Inverleith Row Edinburgh EH3 5LR Scotland United KingdomInstituto de Biologia Universidade Federal da Bahia, Rua Barão de Jeremoabo s.n., Ondina Salvador 40170‐115 Bahia BrazilAbstract Premise Data on plant distribution and diversity from natural history collections and taxonomic databases are increasingly becoming available online as exemplified by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's Plants of the World Online (POWO) database. This growing accumulation of biodiversity information requires an advance in bioinformatic tools for accessing and processing the massive data for use in downstream science. We present herein expowo, an open‐source package that facilitates extracting and using botanical data from POWO. Methods and Results The expowo package is implemented in R and designed to handle the entire vascular plant tree of life. It includes functions to readily distill taxonomic and distributional information about all families, genera, or species of vascular plants. It outputs a complete list of species in each genus of any plant family, with the associated original publication, synonyms, and distribution, and plots global maps of species richness at the country and botanical country levels, as well as graphs displaying species‐discovery accumulation curves and nomenclatural changes over time. To demonstrate expowo's strengths in producing easy‐to‐handle outputs, we also show empirical examples from a set of biodiverse countries and representative species‐rich and ecologically important angiosperm families. Conclusions By harnessing bioinformatic tools that accommodate varying levels of R programming proficiency, expowo functions assist users who have limited R programming expertise in efficiently distilling specific botanical information from online sources and producing maps and graphics for the further interpretation of biogeographic and taxonomic patterns.https://doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11609biodiversitydata miningnatural history collectionsvascular plants
spellingShingle Débora C. Zuanny
Bruno Vilela
Peter W. Moonlight
Tiina E. Särkinen
Domingos Cardoso
expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data
Applications in Plant Sciences
biodiversity
data mining
natural history collections
vascular plants
title expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data
title_full expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data
title_fullStr expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data
title_full_unstemmed expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data
title_short expowo: An R package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data
title_sort expowo an r package for mining global plant diversity and distribution data
topic biodiversity
data mining
natural history collections
vascular plants
url https://doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11609
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AT brunovilela expowoanrpackageforminingglobalplantdiversityanddistributiondata
AT peterwmoonlight expowoanrpackageforminingglobalplantdiversityanddistributiondata
AT tiinaesarkinen expowoanrpackageforminingglobalplantdiversityanddistributiondata
AT domingoscardoso expowoanrpackageforminingglobalplantdiversityanddistributiondata