Query taxa present in a geographic area via RGBIF/API

1

If I search for occurences of a genus on the website, the results includes taxonomic details in one of the tabs. In combination with limiting my search to a geographic area, I can use this to get a list of, e.g., all Vaccinium species with records in North America.

This involves manually copying a table from the website and massaging it into a spreadsheet.

Is it possible to use RGBIF, or the API directly, to get a list of species in a genus for which there are records in a geographic area? I don’t want the records themselves, just a checklist.

2

Hi Tyler,

For any occurrence search, you can request to download a species list rather than the occurrences themselves. For example, using rgbif:

pred_and(
  pred("continent","NORTH_AMERICA"),
  pred("taxonKey",2882813)
) %>% occ_download(format = "SPECIES_LIST")

Of course, you can use another filter for geography if you’d like.

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3

Yes exactly! Note that the same can be achieved by selecting the “species list” format for any selection of occurrences in the web interface.

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