I’m trying to combine 2 data frames by Genus name using left_join, one holding measurements, the other holding taxonomic info.

This is what I’m trying:

joined <- left_join(taxonomy, x, by = join_by(Genus == Genus), relationship = 'many-to-one', multiple = 'all')

And this is the error I keep getting:

Error in left_join(): ! Each row in x must match at most 1 row in y. ℹ Row 1 of x matches multiple rows in y

when I try to just use merge like this:

joined2 <- merge(taxonomy, x, all.y = TRUE, by = "Genus")

It creates duplicates in the species column to account for the data frames being different sizes.

Can anyone explain the error to me and perhaps suggest a work around?