rcites review
A focused R API client for conservation legislation data, not a citation manager.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
rcites is an open-source R package from rOpenSci for programmatic access to the Species+ database through the Species+/CITES Checklist API. It is aimed at solo developers and small teams working with conservation legislation and biodiversity data rather than researchers seeking a conventional citation-management application. Functions cover taxon concepts and identifiers, CITES and EU legislation, species distributions, and listing references. The package is distributed through CRAN and GitHub under the MIT license.
Its main value is focused data access. Users can select CITES or CMS taxonomy, retrieve several related data types, and submit bulk queries with vectors of taxon IDs. The integration scope is centered on the Species+ database and its Species+/CITES Checklist API, making rcites a practical fit when that ecosystem is the required source. A personal API authentication token is required, so onboarding includes obtaining and configuring that credential before querying. Published support is documentation, which suits users comfortable working directly with an R package and API-oriented workflows.
The narrow scope is also the decisive limitation for this category. rcites is a biodiversity-data API client, not a library for collecting, organizing, formatting, or inserting citations into documents. It does not provide the core citation-management workflows expected from bibliography software, and no document or bibliography plugins are described. Choose rcites when your priority is repeatable access to Species+ taxon, legislation, distribution, and reference data in R. Choose a conventional citation-management product instead when you need research-library organization or document-based citation workflows.
rcites pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Queries taxon concepts and retrieves taxon identifiers
- Retrieves CITES, EU legislation, distributions, and listing references
- Supports bulk taxon-ID queries and CITES or CMS taxonomy selection
- Where it doesn't
- Requires a personal API authentication token
- Provides docs as its listed support channel
- Lacks conventional document and bibliography management workflows
rcites fact sheet, pricing and score →
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