naturaList

naturaList classifies species occurrence records by identification confidence to improve data quality for biodiversity research and is provided as an R package (version 0.2.0).

Key Features:

• Confidence Classification: Classifies species occurrences into six distinct levels of confidence regarding identification accuracy.
• Specialist Identification Recognition: Assigns the highest confidence level to records identified by a recognized specialist, requiring the specialist's name for designation.
• Data Filtering and Grid Cell Analysis: Filters occurrence data within specified grid cells and retains only the highest-confidence record per cell.
• Reproducibility Assurance: Standardizes occurrence data processing and cleaning to support reproducible biodiversity analyses.

Scientific Applications:

• Macroecology and Biogeography: Improves the reliability of species distribution datasets used in macroecological and biogeographical analyses.
• Taxonomy and Data Curation: Supports taxonomists and data curators in identifying records and sites that require further taxonomic evaluation.

Methodology:

Case study using 323 geographically-coordinated occurrences of Alsophila setosa from the Atlantic Forest, classifying records and retaining only those in the two highest confidence levels to yield 94 high-confidence occurrences.