Mapping global distribution for any taxonomic level

Here in this article, we show how to use the package’s function powoMap for mapping the global distribution for any genus or family of flowering plants either at political country or botanical country level, following the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. The powoMap can use as input data the dataframe-formatted resulting query from powoSpecies function or a external spreadsheet. Then, powoMap can automatically create one global distribution map for the entire group (e.g., order, family) or multiple maps for each desired taxonomic level within the input data (e.g., genus). The map is colored according to the species richness using either Viridis or RColorBrewer color palettes.


Setup

Install the latest development version of expowo from GitHub:

#install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("DBOSlab/expowo")
library(expowo)


1. Mining species distribution from POWO to use as input data in powoMap

To create global distribution maps using powoMap function, you can either import a spreadsheet or use the package’s powoSpecies function to get distribution information for the species of the target family or genus. It is possible to adjust one of the arguments in powoSpecies function to extract data only from a genus or list of genera. See further details on how to do so in another article here.

The example below shows how to mine the distribution for an specific genus of Lecythidaceae. By defining a vector within the argument genus, here the function will search for all species and associated distribution data for just the genus Cariniana. Note that we create an object called mapspdist, which is the dataframe-formatted input data to create the map. The output shown here (TABLE 1) is a simplified version, where we have removed some columns so as to focus on the display of just the distribution data.

mapspdist <- powoSpecies(family = "Lecythidaceae", 
                         genus = "Cariniana",
                         hybridspp = FALSE,
                         country = NULL,
                         verbose = TRUE,
                         save = FALSE,
                         dir = "results_powoSpecies/",
                         filename = "Lecythidaceae_Cariniana")
TABLE 1. A general powoSpecies search for mining distribution of the Lecythidaceae genus Cariniana.
family taxon_name native_to_country native_to_botanical_countries kew_id
Lecythidaceae Cariniana domestica Bolivia, Brazil Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil West-Central 592121-1
Lecythidaceae Cariniana estrellensis Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Paraguay 47516-2
Lecythidaceae Cariniana ianeirensis Bolivia, Brazil Bolivia, Brazil Southeast 47518-2
Lecythidaceae Cariniana legalis Brazil Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast 592126-1
Lecythidaceae Cariniana micrantha Bolivia, Brazil Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil West-Central 47522-2
Lecythidaceae Cariniana parvifolia Brazil Brazil Southeast 302134-2
Lecythidaceae Cariniana penduliflora Brazil Brazil North 47527-2
Lecythidaceae Cariniana pyriformis Colombia, Venezuela Colombia, Venezuela 592127-1
Lecythidaceae Cariniana rubra Brazil Brazil North, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central 592128-1


2. Creating global-scale map for one genus to show species richness at political country level

To generate a global distribution map for one genus that show species richness at political country level, you can use the previously generated mapspdist object as input data of the powoMap function and set the distcol argument as “native_to_country”. This is the very column of the dataframe-formatted mapspdist object that is associated to species distribution at political country.

The example below shows how to create the global distribution map of Cariniana’s species richness as colored by the viridis palette of the Viridis package. If you set up both the arguments vir_color and bre_color with any of the Viridis and RColorBrewer color palettes, then two maps colored respectively by these color vectors will be automatically generated. Different file formats and resolutions (e.g. JPG, PDF, PNG, TIFF) are also supported by setting the arguments format and dpi.

powoMap(inputdf = mapspdist,
        botctrs = FALSE,
        distcol = "native_to_country",
        taxclas = "genus",
        verbose = FALSE,
        save = FALSE,
        vir_color = "viridis",
        bre_color = NULL,
        leg_title = "SR",
        dpi = 600,
        dir = "results_powoMap/",
        filename = "global_richness_country_map",
        format = "jpg")

FIGURE 1. Global species richness of the genus _Cariniana_ at country level and colored with viridis scale.

FIGURE 1. Global species richness of the genus Cariniana at country level and colored with viridis scale.


3. Creating global-scale map for one genus to show species richness at botanical country level

To generate a global distribution map for one genus that show species richness at botanical country level, adjust the argument botctrs within the powoMap function to TRUE. Then, use the previously generated mapspdist object as input data in inputdf and set the distcol argument to the name of the column with distribution according to botanical countries between quotation marks. This is the column of the dataframe-formatted mapspdist object or from an external spreadsheet.

The example below shows how to create the global distribution map of Cariniana’s species richness according to botanical subdivision and colored by the viridis palette of the Viridis package. If you set up both the arguments vir_color and bre_color with any of the Viridis and RColorBrewer color palettes, then two maps colored respectively by these color vectors will be automatically generated. Different file formats and resolutions (e.g. JPG, PDF, PNG, TIFF) are also supported by setting the arguments format and dpi.

powoMap(inputdf = mapspdist,
        botctrs = TRUE,
        distcol = "native_to_botanical_countries",
        taxclas = "genus",
        verbose = FALSE,
        save = FALSE,
        vir_color = "viridis",
        bre_color = NULL,
        leg_title = "SR",
        dpi = 600,
        dir = "results_powoMap/",
        filename = "global_richness_botcountry_map",
        format = "jpg")

FIGURE 2. Global species richness of the genus _Cariniana_ at botanical country level and colored with viridis scale.

FIGURE 2. Global species richness of the genus Cariniana at botanical country level and colored with viridis scale.


4. Creating global-scale map of species richness for an entire family

To generate a family-level global distribution map of species richness, use powoSpecies function without any genus constraint so as to query a full species list of the desired family and the associated distribution data. Then, the resulting query object should be used as input data of the powoMap function.

mapspdist <- powoSpecies(family = "Lecythidaceae",
                         genus = NULL,
                         hybridspp = FALSE,
                         country = NULL,
                         verbose = FALSE,
                         save = FALSE,
                         dir = "results_powoSpecies/",
                         filename = "Lecythidaceae")


The example below uses the previously generated dataframe-formatted mapspdist object as input data to powoMap function, with the distcol argument set as “native_to_country”, the taxclas argument set as "family", the vir_color argument set as “viridis”, and the bre_color argument set as “Spectral”, so as to automatically produce two global distribution maps of all Lecythidaceae’s species richness at country level, which are distinctly colored by Viridis and RColorBrewer color palettes.

Note that if you had set here the taxclas as "genus", then the powoMap function would have produced individual distribution maps of species richness for every single genus within Lecythidaceae, all of them being stored in the desired directory at dir argument.

powoMap(inputdf = mapspdist,
        botctrs = FALSE,
        distcol = "native_to_country",
        taxclas = "family",
        verbose = FALSE,
        save = FALSE,
        vir_color = "viridis",
        bre_color = "Spectral",
        leg_title = "SR",
        dpi = 600,
        dir = "results_powoMap/",
        filename = "global_richness_botcountry_map",
        format = "jpg")

FIGURE 3. Global species richness of Lecythidaceae at country level and colored with viridis scale.

FIGURE 3. Global species richness of Lecythidaceae at country level and colored with viridis scale.