Get occurrence data

Retrieve ALA occurrence data via the "occurrence download" web service. At least one of taxon, wkt, or fq must be supplied for a valid query.

occurrences(
  taxon,
  wkt,
  fq,
  fields,
  extra,
  qa,
  method,
  generate_doi = FALSE,
  email,
  email_notify = FALSE,
  download_reason_id = ala_config()$download_reason_id,
  reason,
  verbose = ala_config()$verbose,
  record_count_only = FALSE,
  use_layer_names = TRUE,
  use_data_table = TRUE
)

Arguments

taxon	string: (optional) query of the form field:value (e.g. "genus:Heleioporus") or a free text search (e.g. "macropodidae"). Note that a free-text search is equivalent to specifying the "text" field (i.e. `taxon = "Alaba"` is equivalent to `taxon = "text:Alaba"`. The text field is populated with the taxon name along with a handful of other commonly-used fields, and so just specifying your target taxon (e.g. taxon = "Alaba vibex") will probably work. However, for reliable results it is recommended to use a specific field where possible (see `ala_fields("occurrence")` for valid fields). It is also good practice to quote the taxon name if it contains multiple words, for example `taxon = "taxon_name:\"Alaba vibex\""`
wkt	string: (optional) a WKT (well-known text) string providing a spatial polygon within which to search, e.g. "POLYGON((140 -37,151 -37,151 ] -26,140.131 -26,140 -37))"
fq	string: (optional) character string or vector of strings, specifying filters to be applied to the original query. These are of the form "INDEXEDFIELD:VALUE" e.g. "kingdom:Fungi". See `ala_fields("occurrence",as_is = TRUE)` for all the fields that are queryable. NOTE that fq matches are case-sensitive, but sometimes the entries in the fields are not consistent in terms of case (e.g. kingdom names "Fungi" and "Plantae" but "ANIMALIA"). fq matches are ANDed by default (e.g. c("field1:abc","field2:def") will match records that have field1 value "abc" and field2 value "def"). To obtain OR behaviour, use the form c("field1:abc OR field2:def"). See e.g. https://lucene.apache.org/solr/guide/6_6/common-query-parameters.html for more information about filter queries
fields	string vector: (optional) a vector of field names to return. Note that the columns of the returned data frame are not guaranteed to retain the ordering of the field names given here. If not specified, a default list of fields will be returned. See `ala_fields("occurrence")` for valid field names. Field names can be passed as full names (e.g. "Radiation - lowest period (Bio22)") rather than id ("el871"). Use `fields = "all"` to include all available fields, but note that `"all"` will probably cause an error because the request URL will exceed the maximum allowable length
extra	string vector: (optional) a vector of field names to include in addition to those specified in `fields`. This is useful if you would like the default list of fields (i.e. when `fields` parameter is not specified) plus some additional extras. See `ala_fields("occurrence_stored",as_is = TRUE)` for valid field names. Field names can be passed as full names (e.g. "Radiation - lowest period (Bio22)") rather than id ("el871"). Use `extra = "all"` to include all available fields, but note that `"all"` will probably cause an error with `method = "offline"` because the request URL will exceed the maximum allowable length
qa	string vector: (optional) list of record issues to include in the download. Use `qa = "all"` to include all available issues, or `qa = "none"` to include none. Otherwise see `ala_fields("assertions",as_is = TRUE)` for valid values
method	string: This parameter is deprecated. Now all queries use offline method unless `record_count_only = TRUE` more fields are available and larger datasets can be returned
generate_doi	logical: by default no DOI will be generated. Set to true if you intend to use the data in a publication or similar
email	string: the email address of the user performing the download (required unless `record_count_only = TRUE`
email_notify	logical: by default an email with the download information will be sent to the `email` specified. Set to `FALSE` if you are doing a large number of downloads
download_reason_id	numeric or string: (required unless record_count_only is TRUE) a reason code for the download, either as a numeric ID (currently 0--11) or a string (see `ala_reasons` for a list of valid ID codes and names). The download_reason_id can be passed directly to this function, or alternatively set using `ala_config(download_reason_id = ...)`
reason	string: (optional) user-supplied description of the reason for the download. Providing this information is optional but will help the ALA to better support users by building a better understanding of user communities and their data requests
verbose	logical: show additional progress information? [default is set by ala_config()]
record_count_only	logical: if TRUE, return just the count of records that would be downloaded, but don't download them. Note that the record count is always re-retrieved from the ALA, regardless of the caching settings. If a cached copy of this query exists on the local machine, the actual data set size may therefore differ from this record count. `record_count_only = TRUE` can only be used with `method = "indexed"`
use_layer_names	logical: if TRUE, layer names will be used as layer column names in the returned data frame (e.g. "radiationLowestPeriodBio22"). Otherwise, layer id value will be used for layer column names (e.g. "el871")
use_data_table	logical: if TRUE, attempt to read the data.csv file using the fread function from the data.table package. If this fails with an error or warning, or if use_data_table is FALSE, then read.table will be used (which may be slower)

Value

Data frame of occurrence results, with one row per occurrence record. The columns of the dataframe will depend on the requested fields

References

Associated ALA web service for record counts: https://api.ala.org.au/#ws3
Associated ALA web service for occurence downloads: https://api.ala.org.au/#ws4
Field definitions: https://biocache-ws.ala.org.au/ws/index/fields
WKT reference http://www.geoapi.org/3.0/javadoc/org/opengis/referencing/doc-files/WKT.html

Examples

if (FALSE) {
## count of records from this data provider
x <- occurrences(taxon = "data_resource_uid:dr356",record_count_only = TRUE)
## download records, with standard fields
x <- occurrences(taxon = "data_resource_uid:dr356", download_reason_id = 10,
email = 'your_email_here')
## download records, with all fields
x <- occurrences(taxon = "data_resource_uid:dr356",download_reason_id = 10,
  fields = ala_fields("occurrence_stored",as_is = TRUE)$name)
## download records, with specified fields
x <- occurrences(taxon = "genus:Heleioporus",
fields = c("longitude","latitude",
  "common_name","taxon_name","el807"),download_reason_id = 10)
## download records in polygon, with no quality assertion information
x <- occurrences(taxon = "genus:Heleioporus",
  wkt = "POLYGON((145 -37,150 -37,150 -30,145 -30,145 -37))",
  download_reason_id = 10,qa = "none")

y <- occurrences(taxon = "taxon_name:\"Alaba vibex\"",fields = c("latitude",
"longitude","el874"),
  download_reason_id = 10)
str(y)
# equivalent direct webservice call
# [see this by setting ala_config(verbose = TRUE)]:
# https://biocache-ws.ala.org.au/ws/occurrences/index/download?q=taxon_name%3A%22Alaba%20vibex%22&
# fields=latitude,longitude,el874&reasonTypeId=10&sourceTypeId=2001&esc=%5C&sep=%09&file=data
occurrences(taxon="taxon_name:\"Eucalyptus gunnii\"",
fields=c("latitude","longitude"),
  qa="none",fq="basis_of_record:LivingSpecimen",
  download_reason_id=10)
# equivalent direct webservice call
# [see this by setting ala_config(verbose=TRUE)]:
# https://biocache-ws.ala.org.au/ws/occurrences/index/download?q=taxon_name%3A%22
# Eucalyptus%20gunnii%22&fq=basis_of_record%3ALivingSpecimen&fields=latitude,longitude&qa=none&
# reasonTypeId=10&sourceTypeId=2001&esc=%5C&sep=%09&file=data
}

Arguments

Value

References

See also

Examples