Current Status
rcites
An R package to access information from the Speciesplus database via the Species+/CITES Checklist API. The package is available for download from CRAN (stable version) and Github (development version).
Please see the [release paper](link to come) for background information about the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Species+ database and basic information about the aim of the package.
Installation
The package can be installed from CRAN:
install.packages("rcites")
library("rcites")
The development version can be installed via the devtools
package:
devtools::install_github("ropensci/rcites")
library("rcites")
Setup requirements and use
To set up a connection to the CITES Species+ database, a personal authentication token is required. Please see the vignette for details how to get a token and how to set the token for package use: Get started with rcites
Additional information about specific use examples are provided for the African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana). The package usage for querying multiple species is described in another vignette entitled 'Bulk analysis with rcites'.
Key features
Once the token is set, the package has five key features:
-
spp_taxonconcept()
: access the Speciesplus taxon concept and retrieve a taxon id -
spp_cites_legislation()
: access CITES legislation data -
spp_eu_legislation()
: access EU legislation data -
spp_distributions()
: access a taxon distribution data -
spp_references()
: access a listing reference data
Prefix information
The package functions have three different prefixes:
-
set_
forset_token()
to initially set the API token -
spp_
for the key features -
rcites_
for helper functions that are called within the key features
Citation information
When citing, please refer to both the package citation.
Contributors
-
Reviewers of the package:
-
Editor: Scott Chamberlain
-
Reporting issue(s):
Resources
Another package dealing with data from and about CITES, providing access to its wildlife trade database: cites
While creating this package, we greatly benefited from:
-
taxize that inspired the structuring of this repository/package;
-
the
httr
vignette: Managing secrets, which is extremely helpful for packages dealing with API.
Code of Conduct
Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.
Also, please read the Terms and Conditions of Use of Species+ Data: https://speciesplus.net/terms-of-use.