quadcleanR: An R Package for the Cleanup and Visualization of Quadrat Data
Dominique G. Maucieri · The Journal of Open Source Software · 2022
Biodiversity is a crucial component of ecosystems, such that the monitoring of biodiversity is a priority for effective conservation programs.For communities of sessile organisms, it is common to implement quadrats (a frame isolating a known area) to quantify the ecosystem's biodiversity.Technological advancements like photo quadrats and machine learning provide potential for the collection of quadrat data from different monitoring programs and for studies to conduct larger scale analyses.However, for quadrat data from different methodologies to be compatible, data must be standardized to the same area.The quadcleanR R package was created to assist in standardizing quadrat areas while maintaining the spatial relationships between identified organisms and substrates as well as assist in the cleanup and visualization of quadrat data.This package aims to facilitate comparability between quadrat data from different sources and streamline data cleanup.