Welcome to iucnr, an R package designed for researchers, ecologists, and conservationists to query and integrate data from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species efficiently and offline.
By pairing with the local data provider iucnrdata, iucnr allows users to perform exact and fuzzy taxonomic matching for species lists, retrieve IUCN Red List conservation statuses, and fetch preferred vernacular (common) names without needing an API key or an active internet connection.
Versión en Español
Bienvenido a iucnr, un paquete de R diseñado para investigadores, ecólogos y conservacionistas que buscan consultar e integrar datos de la Lista Roja de Especies Amenazadas de la UICN de forma eficiente y sin necesidad de conexión a internet.
Al combinarse con el paquete de datos local iucnrdata, iucnr permite realizar emparejamientos taxonómicos exactos y aproximados (fuzzy matching) para listas de especies de flora y fauna, obtener categorías de conservación de la Lista Roja de la UICN y recuperar nombres comunes o vernáculos preferidos sin requerir claves de API.
Installation / Instalación
To ensure access to the full IUCN database offline, install the data package iucnrdata from R-Universe:
install.packages(
"iucnrdata",
repos = c("https://paulesantos.r-universe.dev", "https://cloud.r-project.org")
)You can install the development version of iucnr from GitHub:
# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("PaulESantos/iucnr")Examples / Ejemplos de Uso
1. Fauna Species / Especies de Fauna
Retrieve the IUCN conservation status and common names for iconic wild fauna species (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles):
library(iucnr)
fauna <- c(
"Panthera onca", # Jaguar
"Tremarctos ornatus", # Andean Bear / Oso de anteojos
"Vultur gryphus", # Andean Condor
"Spheniscus humboldti", # Humboldt Penguin
"Ambystoma mexicanum" # Axolotl
)
# Retrieve conservation status as a tibble
get_iucn_status(splist = fauna, format = "tbl")
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN genus list ───────────────────────────────────────────
#> ✔ All input genera were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN species list ─────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ✔ All species were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#> # A tibble: 5 × 5
#> id submitted_name matched_species redlist_category redlist_criteria
#> <int> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 1 Panthera onca Panthera onca Near Threatened ---
#> 2 2 Tremarctos ornatus Tremarctos ornat… Vulnerable ---
#> 3 3 Vultur gryphus Vultur gryphus Vulnerable ---
#> 4 4 Spheniscus humboldti Spheniscus humbo… Vulnerable ---
#> 5 5 Ambystoma mexicanum Ambystoma mexica… Critically Enda… ---Retrieve common names for the same fauna species:
get_iucn_common_name(splist = fauna, format = "tbl")
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN genus list ───────────────────────────────────────────
#> ✔ All input genera were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN species list ─────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ✔ All species were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Verifying IUCN data for common names. ───────────────────────────────────────
#> # A tibble: 5 × 4
#> id submitted_name matched_species common_name
#> <int> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 1 Panthera onca Panthera onca Jaguar
#> 2 2 Tremarctos ornatus Tremarctos ornatus Andean Bear
#> 3 3 Vultur gryphus Vultur gryphus Andean Condor
#> 4 4 Spheniscus humboldti Spheniscus humboldti Humboldt Penguin
#> 5 5 Ambystoma mexicanum Ambystoma mexicanum Axolotl2. Flora Species / Especies de Flora
Retrieve IUCN data for threatened, vulnerable, or key plant species (trees, palms, high-altitude Andean flora):
flora <- c(
"Ceroxylon mequense", # Quindío Wax Palm / Palma de cera
"Swietenia macrophylla", # Big-leaf Mahogany / Caoba
"Puya raimondii", # Queen of the Andes / Titanca
"Cedrela odorata", # Spanish Cedar / Cedro amargo
"Polylepis racemosa" # Quenoa / Queñua tree
)
get_iucn_status(splist = flora, format = "tbl")
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN genus list ───────────────────────────────────────────
#> ✔ All input genera were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN species list ─────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ℹ 4 species matched exactly, 0 matched using fuzzy matching.
#> ! 1 species not matched: "Ceroxylon mequense"
#> # A tibble: 5 × 5
#> id submitted_name matched_species redlist_category redlist_criteria
#> <int> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 1 Ceroxylon mequense --- --- ---
#> 2 2 Swietenia macrophylla Swietenia macro… Endangered ---
#> 3 3 Puya raimondii Puya raimondii Endangered ---
#> 4 4 Cedrela odorata Cedrela odorata Vulnerable ---
#> 5 5 Polylepis racemosa Polylepis racem… Data Deficient ---3. Handling Typos with Fuzzy Matching / Coincidencia con Errores Tipográficos
iucnr automatically resolves typographical errors in species names using string distance algorithm (max_dist = 1):
splist_typos <- c(
"Pantera onca", # Typo in genus: Panthera -> Pantera
"Puya raimondi", # Typo in epithet: raimondii -> raimondi
"Escallonia ressinosa" # Typo in epithet: resinosa -> ressinosa
)
get_iucn_status(splist = splist_typos, format = "tbl")
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN genus list ───────────────────────────────────────────
#> ✔ All input genera were matched successfully (2 exact, 1 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN species list ─────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ✔ All species were matched successfully (0 exact, 3 fuzzy).
#> # A tibble: 3 × 5
#> id submitted_name matched_species redlist_category redlist_criteria
#> <int> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 1 Pantera onca Panthera onca Near Threatened ---
#> 2 2 Puya raimondi Puya raimondii Endangered ---
#> 3 3 Escallonia ressinosa Escallonia resin… Near Threatened ---4. Integration with tidyverse & dplyr workflows
Integrate conservation statuses and common names directly into your data frame of species occurrences or ecological surveys:
library(dplyr)
library(tibble)
biodiversity_survey <- tibble(
species_name = c(
"Panthera onca",
"Swietenia macrophylla",
"Vultur gryphus",
"Puya raimondii",
"Tremarctos ornatus"
),
group = c("Fauna", "Flora", "Fauna", "Flora", "Fauna")
)
survey_with_iucn <- biodiversity_survey %>%
mutate(
iucn_status = get_iucn_status(species_name, format = "vect"),
common_name = get_iucn_common_name(species_name, format = "vect")
)
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN genus list ───────────────────────────────────────────
#> ✔ All input genera were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN species list ─────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ✔ All species were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN genus list ───────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ✔ All input genera were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Matching names to IUCN species list ─────────────────────────────────────────
#>
#> ✔ All species were matched successfully (5 exact, 0 fuzzy).
#>
#>
#> ── Verifying IUCN data for common names. ───────────────────────────────────────
survey_with_iucn
#> # A tibble: 5 × 4
#> species_name group iucn_status common_name
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 Panthera onca Fauna Near Threatened Jaguar
#> 2 Swietenia macrophylla Flora Endangered Big Leaf Mahogany
#> 3 Vultur gryphus Fauna Vulnerable Andean Condor
#> 4 Puya raimondii Flora Endangered Queen of the Andes
#> 5 Tremarctos ornatus Fauna Vulnerable Andean BearCitation / Citación
When using information from the IUCN Red List retrieved via iucnr in your scientific publications or reports, please cite the underlying IUCN dataset:
IUCN. 2026. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2026-1. Data retrieved via GBIF (https://www.gbif.org/dataset/19491596-35ae-4a91-9a98-85cf505f1bd3).
For package citation in R:
citation("iucnr")
#> To cite iucnr in publications use:
#>
#> Santos-Andrade Paul E. (2026). iucnr: IUCN Red List Data.
#>
#> A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is
#>
#> @Manual{,
#> author = {Paul E. Santos Andrade},
#> title = {iucnr: IUCN Red List Data},
#> year = {2026},
#> url = {https://paulesantos.github.io/iucnr/},
#> }
#>
#> To cite the IUCN dataset, please use: IUCN. 2026. The IUCN Red List of
#> Threatened Species. Version 2026-1. Data retrieved from GBIF
#> (https://www.gbif.org/dataset/19491596-35ae-4a91-9a98-85cf505f1bd3).