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rmdd

rmdd provides packaged Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) data for R and a practical workflow for mammal name reconciliation, accepted-name retrieval, distribution summaries, and distribution maps. It is designed for analysts who need a local, reproducible interface to the current MDD release.

Installation

Development version:

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("PaulESantos/rmdd")

What is included

rmdd ships three lazily loaded datasets:

Dataset Rows Purpose
mdd_checklist 6,871 Current accepted species checklist with taxonomy, status, and distribution fields
mdd_synonyms 64,683+ Synonym table linking historical and alternate names to accepted species
mdd_type_specimen_metadata 138 Collection-level metadata for type specimen institutions cited in MDD

Quick start 

library(rmdd)
library(dplyr)
#> 
#> Adjuntando el paquete: 'dplyr'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union

mdd_matching(c("Puma concolor", "Felis concolor", "Pumma concolor")) |>
  select(input_name, matched_name, taxon_status, accepted_name, match_stage)
#> # A tibble: 3 × 5
#>   input_name     matched_name   taxon_status accepted_name match_stage          
#>   <chr>          <chr>          <chr>        <chr>         <chr>                
#> 1 Puma concolor  Puma concolor  accepted     Puma concolor direct_match         
#> 2 Felis concolor Felis concolor synonym      Puma concolor direct_match         
#> 3 Pumma concolor Puma concolor  accepted     Puma concolor direct_match_species…
mdd_taxon_record("Vicugna vicugna")$taxon_tbl |>
  select(
    sci_name,
    original_name_combination,
    country_distribution,
    iucn_status
  )
#> # A tibble: 1 × 4
#>   sci_name     original_name_combination country_distribution        iucn_status
#>   <chr>        <chr>                     <chr>                       <chr>      
#> 1 Lama_vicugna Camellus Vicugna          Peru|Bolivia|Chile|Argenti… LC (as Vic…
mdd_distribution_summary(level = "country") |>
  arrange(desc(total_species)) |>
  slice_head(n = 5)
#> # A tibble: 5 × 7
#>   region    orders families genera living_species extinct_species total_species
#>   <chr>      <int>    <int>  <int>          <int>           <int>         <int>
#> 1 Indonesia     17       58    241            793               4           797
#> 2 Brazil        11       51    250            785               3           788
#> 3 China         12       56    259            746               0           746
#> 4 Mexico        12       45    205            585               4           589
#> 5 Peru          13       55    229            582               0           582
mdd_distribution_map("Lama vicugna", quiet = TRUE)

Distribution map of Lama vicugna across western South America.

Site structure

The pkgdown site is organized around three entry points:

  • Home: short package overview, installation, and a minimal workflow.
  • Get started: a complete walkthrough from bundled datasets to name matching, taxon retrieval, and distribution mapping.
  • Reference: function documentation grouped by data access, reconciliation, taxon retrieval, and distribution tasks.

For the full workflow, see the Get started article.

Citation

Use citation("rmdd") to cite the package and mdd_reference() to cite the bundled MDD release used by the package.

mdd_reference()
#> 
#> ── MDD Citation ──
#> 
#> Mammal Diversity Database. (2026). Mammal Diversity Database (Version 2.4)
#> [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17033774
#> DOI: <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17033774>