Oxford LibGuides: Ecology: Databases

Databases

Oxford subscribes to lots of databases you can use for free. You will likely find you need to use several databases for a thorough search of your subject area. The tabs at the top of this section take you to key databases for Ecology and links to browse all databases in relevant subject areas.

You can also search for specific databases via SOLO. Note, some key texts may be available via a database but not individually listed on SOLO.

Help with databases

For those seeking advice on accessing databases, we recommend the following guides:

Online and Remote Access
Information on accessing Bodleian Libraries content remotely.
University of Oxford E-resources Blog
The e-resources team use this blog to help keep you informed of news and changes in the world of ejournals and databases.

Below are key bibliographic databases applicable to those studying Ecology at Oxford.

Access

Depending on the database provider, you may need to use your Oxford Single Sign On to access materials.

BIOSIS Citation Index
An expansive index to life sciences and biomedical research covering pre-clinical and experimental research, methods and instrumentation, animal studies, and more.
Alternative name: WoK. Get a comprehensive view of life sciences research, including the most important discoveries, significant influences and relevant connections. Biosis Citation IndexSM combines critical life sciences research with powerful citation indexing.
CAB Abstracts
CAB ABSTRACTS is the world's most comprehensive and integrated international agricultural and applied life sciences database, covering international issues in agriculture, forestry, and allied disciplines in the life sciences.
CAB ABSTRACTS is the world's most comprehensive and integrated international agricultural and applied life sciences database, covering international issues in agriculture, forestry, and allied disciplines in the life sciences. The database contains over 5.8 million records from over 11,000 journals, books, conferences, reports, and other kinds of literature published internationally in over 75 languages. Subjects covered include animal and crop husbandry, animal and plant breeding, plant protection, genetics,forestry engineering, economics, veterinary medicine, human nutrition, and rural development.
The records are also collected into some 46 printed abstract journals published by CABI. Journals, monographs, conferences, books, annual reports, and other sources from more than 130 countries are scanned regularly for inclusion in the CAB ABSTRACTS database, to produce approximately 180,000 new records per year. Nearly all the records have informative English abstracts prepared by our team of scientists and linguists. A specialized thesaurus of index terms has been developed to provide easy access to all records on the database.
Coverage: 1910 -
Forest Science (Ovid)
Forest Science Database is an online information resource for forest and wood science, developed by CABI.

CABI aims to provide impartial information of high quality, recognizing worldwide interest in sustainable forestry, tropical deforestation, climate change, carbon sequestration, forest genetic resources and related issues.
Forest Science Database is an online information resource for forest and wood science, developed by CABI. ForestScience will be of particular interest to those actively involved in research on all aspects of forestry and forest products. But anyone interested in keeping abreast of scientific developments in forestry, agroforestry and wood science will find this site invaluable.
CABI aims to provide impartial information of high quality, recognizing worldwide interest in sustainable forestry, tropical deforestation, climate change, carbon sequestration, forest genetic resources and related issues.
Kew Bibliographic Databases
One of the largest collections of published botanical information in the world. The main subject area is the taxonomy and systematics of wild plants, including collections of herbaria in microform.
Alternative name: KBD

Includes the following databases:
- Kew Record of Taxonomic Literature
- Economic Botany
- Plant Micromorphology
Geobase (in Scopus)
Scopus is a bibliographic database for science, medicine and some social sciences.
Scopus is a bibliographic database for science, medicine and some social sciences. It covers 15,000 journals from 4,000 publishers worldwide, providing access to over 33 million abstracts going back as far as 1869.
It includes the content from a number of other major databases: Medline (medicine) 1966 - , Embase (medicine) 1970 - , Compendex (engineering) 1970 - , Geobase (geography) 1980 - .
Zoological Record (1864-2009)
All major areas of zoology are represented, including: behavior, ecology, evolution, habitat, nutrition, parasitology, reproduction, taxonomy, and zoogeography.
Comprehensive coverage of worldwide zoological literature, including international journals, review annuals, monographs, meeting proceedings, books, and reports. All major areas of zoology are represented, including: behavior, ecology, evolution, habitat, nutrition, parasitology, reproduction, taxonomy, and zoogeography.

Below are key databases applicable to those studying Ecology at Oxford that provide resources beyond purely bibliographic data.

Access

Depending on the database provider, you may need to use your Oxford Single Sign On to access materials.

JSTOR Global Plants
JSTOR Global Plants aggregates content of interest to those working the in the fields of plant sciences, botany and ecology as part of the Global Plants Initiative (GPI). Content includes relevant scientific literature, reference works, images, illustrations, correspondence and a searchable database of over 700,000 plant type specimens.
Alternative name: Plant sciences

JSTOR Global Plants aggregates content of interest to those working the in the fields of plant sciences, botany and ecology as part of the Global Plants Initiative (GPI). Content includes relevant scientific literature, reference works, images, illustrations, correspondence and a searchable database of over 700,000 plant type specimens.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
An international network providing information about where and when species have been recorded.
GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility—is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world's governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth.
Coordinated through its Secretariat in Copenhagen, the GBIF network of participating countries and organizations, working through participant nodes, provides data-holding institutions around the world with common standards and open-source tools that enable them to share information about where and when species have been recorded. This knowledge derives from many sources, including everything from museum specimens collected in the 18th and 19th century to geotagged smartphone photos shared by amateur naturalists in recent days and weeks.
The GBIF network draws all these sources together through the use of data standards, such as Darwin Core, which forms the basis for the bulk of GBIF.org's index of hundreds of millions of species occurrence records. Publishers provide open access to their datasets using machine-readable Creative Commons licence designations, allowing scientists, researchers and others to apply the data in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and policy papers each year. Many of these analyses—which cover topics from the impacts of climate change and the spread of invasive and alien pests to priorities for conservation and protected areas, food security and human health— would not be possible without this.
Global Invasive Species Database
The Global Invasive Species Database is a free, online searchable source of information about alien and invasive species that negatively impact biodiversity.
The Global Invasive Species Database is a free, online searchable source of information about alien and invasive species that negatively impact biodiversity. The GISD aims to increase public awareness about invasive species and to facilitate effective prevention and management activities by disseminating specialist’s knowledge and experience to a broad global audience. It focuses on invasive alien species that threaten native biodiversity and natural areas and covers all taxonomic groups from micro-organisms to animals and plants.
The Global Invasive Species Database (GISD) is managed by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG) of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. It was developed between 1998 and 2000 as part of the global initiative on invasive species led by the erstwhile Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP).
Birds of the World
Birds of the World is a powerful research database that brings together deep, scholarly content from four celebrated works of ornithology, Birds of North America, Handbook of Birds of the World, Neotropical Birds and Bird Families of the World
Birds of the World is a powerful research database that brings together deep, scholarly content from four celebrated works of ornithology, Birds of North America, Handbook of Birds of the World, Neotropical Birds and Bird Families of the World, with millions of bird observations from eBird and multimedia from the Macaulay Library into a single platform where biologists and birders can explore comprehensive life history information on birds.

An in-depth overview of Birds of the World features can be found here.

Below is a description-in-brief:,
• 10,721 species accounts
• 9 free accounts every month
• 249 bird family accounts
• 500 million+ eBird observations
• 100,000+ research citations
• 21,000 color illustrations of every species, and many subspecies
• Tens of thousands of media assets (photos, videos, and sound recordings) from the Macaulay Library
• Range maps, eBird abundance maps, and animated migration maps
• Avian taxonomy explorer
• Ongoing updates
Thames and Chiltern Bird Atlas
A new internet based bird atlas has been launched, covering the counties of Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire. For the first time it is possible to view in one place the breeding and wintering distributions and abundance for all bird species at the tetrad scale for a large tract of southern England as well as the changes since the 1980s, and for Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, since the late 1960s.
Alternative name Thames & Chiltern Bird Atlas

An Internet-based bird atlas covering the counties of Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire. For the first time it is possible to view in one place the breeding and wintering distributions and abundance for all bird species at the tetrad scale for a large tract of southern England as well as the changes since the 1980s, and for Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, since the late 1960s.

The area covered comprises 9276 sq km of inland southern England. From north to south it encompasses part of the southern Cotswolds, the vales of White Horse and Aylesbury, the chalk hills of the Chilterns and Berkshire Downs and valleys of the Thames and some of its southern tributaries. It includes substantial urban areas, such as Reading, Oxford, Luton and Milton Keynes; the outer metropolitan suburbs and a variety of habitat types. It is an area which has seen substantial changes in the 20th century, in both rural and urban areas and these changes continue.

To browse a list of databases for your subject, follow the link below which takes you through to Databases A-Z.

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Ecology: Databases

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Databases

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