col_downstream: Use Catalogue of Life to get downstream taxa to a given taxonomic level.

Description

Use Catalogue of Life to get downstream taxa to a given taxonomic level.

Usage

col_downstream(name = NULL, downto, format = NULL,
    start = NULL, checklist = NULL,
    url = "http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/webservice")

Arguments

name

The string to search for. Only exact matches found the name given will be returned, unless one or wildcards are included in the search string. An * (asterisk) character denotes a wildcard; a character may also be used. The name must be at least 3

downto

The taxonomic level you want to go down to. See examples below. The taxonomic level IS case sensitive, and you do have to spell it correctly. See data(rank_ref) for spelling.

checklist

The year of the checklist to query, if you want a specific year's checklist instead of the lastest as default (numeric).

format

The returned format (default = NULL). If NULL xml is used. Currently only xml is supported.

start

The first record to return (default = NULL). If NULL, the results are returned from the first record (start=0). This is useful if the total number of results is larger than the maximum number of results returned by a single Web service query (curr

url

The base COL url for the function (should be left to default).

Value

A list of data.frame's.

Details

Provide only names instead of id's

Examples

Run this code

# Some basic examples
col_downstream(name="Apis", downto="Species")
col_downstream(name="Bryophyta", downto="Family")

# An example that takes a bit longer
col_downstream(name=c("Plantae","Animalia"), downto="Class")

# Using a checklist from a specific year
col_downstream(name="Bryophyta", downto="Family", checklist="2009")

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