Biology

Agricola.

Beltsville: National Agricultural Library, 1970–. A database of books, articles, and documents on agriculture, including veterinary science, entomology, plant sciences, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries, farming and farming systems, agricultural economics, and nutrition. Searches can be limited to books in the National Agricultural Library, to articles, or both. The database is available at http://agricola.nal.usda.gov.

BIOSIS.

Philadelphia: Biosis, 1926–. The most thorough index to biological literature, with more than 30 million records of biology research dating back to 1926 and including the latest findings. In some libraries, this database is part of the Web of Knowledge.

CSA Biological Sciences.

Bethesda: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, 1994–. Provides citations and abstracts to the contents of over 6,000 biology journals as well as selected conference proceedings and books, covering publications from 1982 to the present.

Animal Diversity Web

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html. Provides information on animals: mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, sharks, bony fish, mollusks, arthropods, and echinoderms. Each animal is classified by phylum, order, class, and family; pictures, sounds, and background information are provided for many of them. The site is a service of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

National Center for Biotechnology Information

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Provides highly technical molecular biology information and tools. The site includes molecular databases, nucleotide and protein sequences, and genome databases as well as links to the PubMed database of medical research and PubMed Central, an archive of free and fully accessible full-text life sciences journals. The center is part of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Plants Database

http://plants.usda.gov. Covers individual plants, invasive species, threatened and endangered plants, checklists by state, fact sheets, and over 40,000 photographs. From the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Tree of Life Web Project

http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html. A collaborative project compiled by biologists around the world. The site offers more than 1,300 schematic trees that map biological relationships and provide information about organisms. Detailed bibliographies are included.

Encyclopedia of Human Biology.

Ed. Renato Dulbecco. 2nd ed. 9 vols. San Diego: Academic Press, 1997. Offers substantial articles on topics in human biology, including behavior, biochemistry, genetics, psychology, and medical research. The final volume includes an index to the set.

Encyclopedia of Microbiology.

Ed. Joshua Lederberg. 2nd ed. 4 vols. San Diego: Academic Press, 2000. Covers topics in microbiology, reviewing research in such areas as bacteriophages, anaerobic respiration, and AIDS. The articles, written for the informed nonspecialist, are substantial and include bibliographies.

Fieldbook of Natural History.

Ed. E. L. Palmer and G. A. Parker. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975. A handy compilation of information on the natural world, devoted chiefly to the description of plants and animals with some information on their environment and behavior. The work is arranged by topic with an alphabetical index.

Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia.

Ed. Bernhard Grzimek. 2nd ed. 17 vols. Detroit: Gale Group, 2003–04. A survey of animals, organized by taxonomic class. Entries discuss species’ distribution, behavior, and appearance; the work includes numerous color plates.

Walker’s Mammals of the World.

By Ronald M. Nowak. 6th ed. 2 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Describes the appearance, habitat, behavior, and biology of every genus of living mammal. The work is arranged taxonomically.