Taxa

Taxa provides data structures and functions to define, parse, store, and manipulate hierarchical taxonomic classifications and associated metadata for DNA sequencing–based community composition studies in R.

Key Features:

• Robust Data Handling: Stores and manipulates taxonomic data alongside application-specific metadata and maintains synchronization between taxonomy and associated data during modifications.
• Flexible Parsing Capabilities: Includes parsers for taxon IDs, sequence IDs, taxon names, and classifications from diverse formats while preserving associated data during parsing.
• Hierarchical Data Management: Respects the hierarchical structure of taxonomic classifications and maintains consistency across taxonomic levels when taxonomy or associated data are modified.

Scientific Applications:

• Community Composition Studies: Supports analysis workflows that use DNA sequencing to profile community composition by managing large volumes of taxonomic data.
• Integration with Other Packages: Serves as a data model and parser used by R packages such as metacoder and taxize for downstream taxonomic analyses.

Methodology:

Implements a set of functions modeled after the R package dplyr for programmatic manipulation of taxonomic datasets.