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BioWorldR: A Curated Collection of Biodiversity and Species Datasets and Utilities

Source: vignettes/BioWorldR_vignette.Rmd
BioWorldR_vignette.Rmd
library(BioWorldR)
library(ggplot2)
#> Warning: package 'ggplot2' was built under R version 4.4.3
library(dplyr)
#> Warning: package 'dplyr' was built under R version 4.4.1
#> 
#> Attaching package: 'dplyr'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union

Introduction

The BioWorldR package provides a curated and diverse collection of datasets focused on biodiversity, species distributions, and biological measurements. It includes data covering birds, plants, reptiles, turtles, mammals, bees, marine organisms, and ecological traits.

The package integrates datasets sourced from public repositories, ecological R packages, and open-access databases, offering standardized access to facilitate research, education, and data analysis in biodiversity, biogeography, ecology, and comparative biology.

These datasets encompass a wide variety of formats and content, including species occurrence records, trait measurements, ecological interactions, population dynamics, and conservation-related information. By centralizing well-documented examples, BioWorldR simplifies teaching, prototyping, reproducible workflows, and exploratory analyses in the biological sciences.

Dataset Suffixes

Each dataset in the BioWorldR package uses a suffix to denote the type of R object:

  • _df: A data frame

  • _list: A list

  • _tbl_df: A tibble

Example Datasets

Below are selected example datasets included in the BioWorldR package:

  • Reptiles_df: This dataset contains the valid names and url addresses for all reptile species cataloged in The Reptile Database

  • Gorillas_df: Chest-beating rates in Gorillas.

  • Brain_animals: Brain weight versus body weight of 28 animals

Data Visualization with BioWorldR Data

Brain weight versus body weight of 28 animals 

Brain_animals %>%
  # Select only the species and bodyweight columns
  select(species, brainweight) %>%
  # Create the bar chart
  ggplot(aes(x = reorder(species, brainweight), y = brainweight)) +
  geom_col(fill = "steelblue") +
  coord_flip() +  # Flip coordinates for better readability
  labs(
    title = "Brainweight of Different Animal Species",
    x = "Species",
    y = "Brainweight "
  ) +
  theme_minimal()

Conclusion

The BioWorldR package provides a curated collection of biodiversity and species-related datasets, covering a wide range of taxa including birds, plants, reptiles, turtles, mammals, bees, and marine organisms. By gathering and standardizing these datasets from public repositories and ecological R packages, it enables researchers, educators, and students to easily access well-documented examples for use in biodiversity, ecology, biogeography, and comparative biology.

The package supports data exploration, visualization, reproducible workflows, and educational purposes, making it a valuable tool for both teaching and applied research.

For detailed information and full documentation of each dataset, please refer to the reference manual and help files included within the package.