Provides raster layers of 31 global biome schemes from Fischer et al. (2022, Global Ecology and Biogeography 31(11): 2172-2183) at 10 x 10 km resolution globally.
Terminology: schemes are addressed by their biome scheme number (1-31). The scheme argument of biomes_classify(), biomes_rank(), biomes_visualise() and biomes_full() replaces the former layer argument; biomes_rank() returns the columns scheme/scheme_name and the attribute best_scheme; biomes_tab() returns a scheme column; biomes_information uses the column scheme_number.
Core functions: biomes_classify() (assign occurrence records to biome classes), biomes_rank() (rank schemes by coverage, effective number of classes, and granularity), biomes_tab() (tabulate records per biome class), biomes_visualise() (combined figure with rank, map and barplot panels, selectable via panels), biomes_full() (one-call wrapper), biomes_get() (load the raster stack), biomes_info() (per-scheme metadata), biomes_occ() (optional GBIF download with coordinate cleaning).
biomes_visualise() now reproduces the full workflow figure: the rank panel shows the composite score plus the raw criteria it averages (coverage, effective classes, granularity), the map panel shows the occurrence map (with an adaptive legend), and the barplot panel shows records and species per biome class back-to-back with centred labels. With combine = FALSE the individual panels are returned as a named list instead of one lettered figure. The former biomes_show_rank() has been removed (its ranking view is the rank panel).
biomes_full(): the scheme argument also accepts a scheme type ("climate", "vegetation", "land_cover", "ecoregion", "integrative", "anthropogenic") to pick the best-fitting scheme within that group, in addition to an integer 1:31 and "best". A new plot argument controls which figure(s) are built: "none" (default, no figure, the fastest option), "all" (the combined lettered figure in $plot), or a subset of c("rank", "map", "barplot") (returned individually, without panel letters, in $rank, $map and $barplot).
The ~36 MB biome raster stack is not bundled inside the package. It is hosted as a GitHub release asset and downloaded once into a per-user cache directory (tools::R_user_dir()) on first use; biomes_download() performs (or refreshes) this download explicitly. This keeps the installed package well under CRAN’s size limit.
Four vignettes follow the four-step workflow (step1- .. step4-):
assembling occurrence records and biome schemes, (2) choosing a biome scheme, (3) occurrences-to-biome classification, and (4) output and visualisation.