# reassign depth values under 10 to zero df$depth[df$depth<10] <- 0
(For the columns that are factors, you can only assign values that are factor levels. If you wanted to assign a value that wasn’t currently a factor level, you would need to create the additional level first:
levels(df$species) <- c(levels(df$species), "unknown") df$species[df$depth<10] <- "unknown"