TR8 v. 0.9.21
=============

Shiny is being used in place of gWidgets to provide the user with a graphical interface to select traits to download.




TR8 v. 0.9.20
=============


## leda_fc

   New function which allows to download Mean Floating Capacity data from LEDA

## synonyms and alternative names

   Now tr8() accepts two new arguments:

   - 'synonyms': when it is set to TRUE the function will use 'tnrs' function from
     		 the package 'taxize' to search for synonyms of the provided species
		 list and search trait data for them as well.

   - 'catminat_alternatives': when TRUE tr8() searches - within the Catminat traitbase - also
                              for species names which "contain" the names of the ones of interest
			      (subspecies in Catminat are usually written in the form "Galium ver. halophilum"
			      instead of "Galium verum subsp. halophilum"; cleaning this format in an automatic way
			      is trickier than expected because for some entries we only have subspecies - thus
			      automatically correcting the Genus is not always possible).



## Fixes

  - LEDA is now using "https"
  - Cleaner requests to Ecoflora
   
 

## Catminat database

	Thanks to the `readxl` package, now the dataset (which is in
    `xlsx` format) can be read without external dependencies
    (i.e. users do not have to worry about installing `perl`)

## BROT, PLANTS and Ecological Flora of California traitbases


     Three new databases are added as sources of data: BROT (mainly related to mediterranean
     species), PLANTS and Ecological Flora of California (from USA).

