qc_taxa_names_proof: QC Taxa List Proofreading

In BioMonTools: Biomonitoring and Bioassessment Calculations

QC Taxa List Proofreading

Description

Performs basic proofreading of names in a taxa list.

Usage

qc_taxa_names_proof(names, method = "jw", max_distance = 0.13)

Arguments

names	A character vector containing taxa name data.
method	String distance method (passed to stringdist). Default = "jw"
max_distance	Numeric threshold for similarity. Default = 0.13

Details

Returns possible differences in a data frame with three columns (qc check, name, potential match(es)). Not all hits are errors but are potential issues that may need to be addressed.

The distance check computes pairwise string distances between names and returns name pairs that are likely duplicates.

Uses Jaro-Winkler (jw) distance by default which performs well for names. Other options are Levenshtein (lv), good for typos, and osa, like Levenshtein but slightly faster.

Good thresholds are jw 0.1 to 0.2, lv and osa <= 2

The checks include:

* **spaces**, leading or trailing, including html white space, or doulble space, or more than 3

* **case**, differences

* **sp** variants; (with/without .) sp and spp, inside next to slash

* **stage** variants; adult, A, pupa, pupae, P, immature, I, imm, juv, juvenile, larva, larvae, L, zoea, myses, mysops?, megalops, megadrile

* **probably**, variants; "?", " prob ", " prob. ", " probably " * add parentheses

* **cf**, variants start, or in string, cf, c.f., cf., c.f

* backslash_dash_underscore

* terrestrial (terr.), megadrile

complex cmplx

all caps

and, &

star

head

possibly, poss, poss.

unknown unk undetermined undet(.), indet, indetermined

large small with space or parentheses

backslash_dash

* **slash, direction** direction; including dash

* **slash, taxa** x/y vs. y/x

* **grp** variants; grp, gr, group, (with/without .) and without and dash and genus group, gp, dash or space before

* **unid** variants; unid, unidentified, unid diff, uid, (with/without .)

diff without unid

* **prob** variants; prob, prob., probably, including "?" (anywhere in text)

* **sensu**

* **parenthetical** text; sensu, prob, inc spec, (with/without .)

* **near** variants; nr n

aff. , f flag

quotes

slash order; c/o vs o/c

with, without, w/, w/o, w/ o, w /, w / o

frag and fragment

Tubificid

* **colon** e.g., Family: Genus

* **patterns** tera$ in Order, idae$ in Family, inae$ Subfamily, and ini$ in Tribe. Look for those patterns not in the expected columns. would need the entire taxa table. Right now only looking at a single vector.

immature, imm, w/ and w/o hair chaetae, hair+pectinate, bifid setae, chaetae

Common authors not in parentheses, e.g., Epler

text mining algorithms (word similarity) Other checks caught:

some not included:

* f. = forma = valid

Value

A data frame with col_tolval values, occurrence (n), and if valid (TRUE/FALSE).

Examples

# Example
proof_issues <- qc_taxa_names_proof(data_taxa_names_issues$FinalID)
# Issues (by type) in data
proof_issues$issues
# different case of same name
proof_issues$case
# stage in final id
proof_issues$stage
# cf in final id
proof_issues$cf
# backslash, dash, underscore, or brackets in final id
proof_issues$backslash_dash_underscore
# similar names (potentially many false positives)
head(proof_issues$distance)

BioMonTools documentation built on Aug. 5, 2026, 1:08 a.m.