infinitylists: A Shiny application and R package for rapid generation of place-based species checklists

Abstract

Premise: Biodiversity researchers often need to answer the question: “Which species of taxon X have been documented in (or near) spatial polygon Y?” Online databases with billions of occurrence records, including vouchered specimens and citizen science records, can provide the answer; however, quick spatial processing of huge biodiversity datasets can be difficult, and many general-purpose tools are constrained by dataset size. Methods and Results: infinitylists is a Shiny application and R package that allows users to generate species checklists for a user-specified taxon and area. It downloads taxon–country datasets (e.g., Madagascan geckos) from biodiversity data providers and uses an open source, column-oriented data file for fast retrieval and visualization. Available as a mobile-friendly web tool with preloaded data, it can also be run locally in R for very flexible applications. Conclusions: infinitylists is an easy-to-use tool with applications including supplementing survey data, planning collecting expeditions, and informing gap-filling. infinitylists is a complementary tool to existing databases to help field ecologists and naturalists globally.