‘EcoCleanR': enhancing data quality of biogeographic ranges with application for marine invertebrates
Soni, P.; Hendy, A.J.W.; Bottjer, D.J. (2026). ‘EcoCleanR': enhancing data quality of biogeographic ranges with application for marine invertebrates. Ecography 2026(3): e08203. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecog.08203
In: Ecography. Munksgaard International: Copenhagen. ISSN 0906-7590; e-ISSN 1600-0587, more
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conservation biology, population ecology |
| Authors | | Top |
- Soni, P.
- Hendy, A.J.W.
- Bottjer, D.J.
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| Abstract |
Published distribution data, while invaluable for understanding species' biogeography, often suffer from limitations such as dated and static representations of ranges, a bias toward latitudinal information, and lack of resolution in sampling frequency and variation in abundance throughout a species' distribution. Extensive open-source biodiversity data now allow us to construct biogeographic ranges with more modern observations, which can be useful in conservation, evolution, and ecological studies. However, data quality remains a persistent challenge, hampering data reliability and usability. We introduce ‘EcoCleanR', an R package that integrates existing tools with new functionalities to address data integration and quality assessment through a systematic, step-by-step approach for marine occurrence data. This package enhances the process of identifying and resolving common issues in biodiversity data, including taxonomy and georeferencing errors. It provides: 1) example scripts to guide users, 2) functionalities to flag problematic occurrence records from multiple databases, and 3) outputs that include species-specific distribution ranges and their corresponding environmental conditions, to facilitate accurate biogeographic and ecological analyses. |
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