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ITIS

Authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world

Actions9

  • Name Actions
  • Name Usage Actions
  • Name Usage Search Actions
  • Name Usage Suggest Actions
  • Reference Actions
  • Synonym Actions
  • Taxon Actions
  • Tree Actions
  • Vernacular Actions

Tree → Get

AI-generated

Overview

This node interacts with the ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System) API to retrieve authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes. Specifically, the "Tree" resource with the "Get" operation allows users to fetch hierarchical taxonomic trees starting from a specified root taxon ID. It supports options to include children taxa, count taxa by specific ranks, include extinct taxa, and more.

This node is beneficial for workflows that require detailed taxonomic hierarchies or classifications, such as biodiversity studies, ecological data processing, or any scientific research involving taxonomy. For example, a user can retrieve the full taxonomic tree of a particular genus including all its species and subspecies, or get counts of taxa grouped by kingdom or family.

Properties

Name Meaning
Additional Fields A collection of optional parameters to customize the tree retrieval:
- Children Boolean flag to show the children taxa for the specified taxon ID.
- Count By The taxonomic rank to count taxa by. Options include a comprehensive list of ranks such as Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, Subspecies, Variety, Form, Strain, and many others.
- Include Extinct Boolean flag to include extinct taxa in the results.
- Include Placeholder Boolean flag to include a placeholder named Not assigned when a name does not exist at a rank.
- Type Specifies the type of tree to retrieve. Options are "Catalogue" or "Source".
- ID The root taxon ID from which to start building the tree. This is a string identifying the taxon in the ITIS dataset.

Output

The output is a JSON array containing the taxonomic tree data retrieved from the ITIS API. The structure includes hierarchical taxon information starting from the specified root ID, optionally including children taxa and other requested details.

  • The JSON typically contains nested objects representing taxa, their ranks, names, and possibly counts if requested.
  • If the "Children" option is enabled, child taxa will be included as nested arrays.
  • The output does not include binary data.

Example snippet of output JSON structure (simplified):

[
  {
    "taxonID": "12345",
    "name": "Example Taxon",
    "rank": "Genus",
    "children": [
      {
        "taxonID": "12346",
        "name": "Example Species",
        "rank": "Species"
      }
    ],
    "countBy": {
      "Family": 10,
      "Species": 50
    }
  }
]

Dependencies

  • The node requires internet access to call the ITIS API endpoint at https://api.checklistbank.org/dataset/2144.
  • No internal credentials or API keys are required for this endpoint.
  • The node uses standard HTTP GET requests with JSON responses.
  • No additional n8n environment variables or configurations are necessary.

Troubleshooting

  • Empty or no results: Ensure the provided root ID is valid and exists in the ITIS dataset. Incorrect or missing IDs will result in empty responses.
  • API request failures: Network issues or API downtime may cause errors. Verify network connectivity and retry later.
  • Invalid parameter values: Using unsupported rank names or invalid types may cause the API to reject the request. Use only the documented options.
  • Large result sets: Requesting very large trees without limits or offsets may lead to timeouts or performance issues. Use pagination options (limit, offset) where applicable.

Common error messages:

  • HTTP 404 Not Found: The specified taxon ID does not exist.
  • HTTP 400 Bad Request: Invalid query parameters.
  • HTTP 500 Internal Server Error: Temporary server issue; retry after some time.

Links and References

This summary covers the "Tree" resource with the "Get" operation based on the provided properties and source code analysis.

Discussion