ECOLOGY, EVOLUTION, AND BIODIVERSITY
This list is prepared particularly for students in the Biological Diversity: Ecology and Evolution class. It covers only a very small portion of course-related stuff you might find on the web. Many of these sites will connect you to others. If you are looking for more specific topics, choose the most closely related here and see if there are links to follow, OR use any search engine with your specific key words (this will be especially productive if you're looking for information on specific organisms or groups).
AN IMPORTANT WARNING: You must approach what you find on the web with a good deal of critical intiative. All published sources need to be considered critically, but that's especially the case here; there's no review, and anybody can put anything up, and make it look really slick. Most of the sites I've selected offer reliable information, but always consider the source. AND DON'T FORGET THE LIBRARY; it is still not possible to find everything on the web.
AND FINALLY, if you use material from these or other web-sites in your work, you must cite them just as you would cite written materials in a bibliography.
- K. Woods, 28 August 2000
General Ecology and Evolution Resources
American Scientist/Sigma Xi: A major semi-popular magazine and associated professional society; many articles and abstracts on-line, searchable. Magazine is in our library.
Smithsonian Natural History: Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
U.N. Environmental Program: What it sounds like. Many connections
Digital Darwin: Works of Darwin available on-line (off copyright!)
"Enter Evolution" at Berkeley: Lotsa links
"The Evolutionist" magazine: Somewhat politicized, often controversial, but frequently interesting semi-popular and inter-disciplinary. Read skeptically.
Evolution, Science, and Society: A Rutgers page
Ecological Society of America: Primary professional society for ecologists
U.S. Geological Survey: Lots of ecological data and links, especially relating to global change and landscape ecology.
Long-term Ecological Research Network: NSF-funded network of major ecological research sites.
International Biosphere-geosphere Program: Another global change, global ecology page
Talk/Origins: Discussion group about evolution/creation issue
Biodiversity and Conservation: An on-line text w/ lots of links -- conservation-oriented.
Convention on Biodiversity: canadian-based: lots of links, especially to policy side of things
Virtual Library for Ecology, Biodiversity, and Environment:
Ecology
WWW Page: Hundreds of Links
Harvard Forest:
A major ecological research center in our region; lots of historical
ecology for New England
Institute for Ecosystem Studies:
Another important regional center
Organization of Biological Field
Stations: What it sounds like
Biodiversity: Phylogenies, Species Lists, Keys, etc.
Tree
of Life: Evolutionary relationships among all
creatures;
only some groups in detail so far, but being added to all the time.
Much
taxonomic information
Atlas
of biodiversity: A massive map database from UN Environment
Programme
National
Biological Information Infrastructure: Clearing-house
for biological and natural history information of all sorts. Want to
know
ranges of butterfly species in Vermont? Species of snails that occur in
Illinois? Lists of endangered species?
Systema Naturae 2000:
An attempt to compile all known species, past and present
ITIS: Another similar
project, more 'authoritative'
Diversity
of Life: Web index
NatureServe: Nature Conservancy's clearing-house for state-by-state info on natural heritage surveys
Biodiversity and Biological Collections: Broad-ranging resource on diversity of all taxa; lots of professional and academic links
Illinois Natural History Survey Center for Biodiversity: lots of good stuff
Nearctica page: North American natural history
Animal Diversity Home-page: from Univ of Mich -- sorta like tree of life
Fish Page: Fishes of North America with many maps and pictures
About spiders and their relatives:
Lichens
of North America: From a book of same name; fabulous photos