Natural History Websites
Try these websites for some basic natural history information:
- USDA PlantsThe PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories.
- National Geographic AnimalsBasic information on a number of invertebrates, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds.
Wikipedia
Search your species name on Wikipedia. There might be an overview of the species' natural history and some background information to get you thinking. Some of the links cited in Wikipedia might even be useful in your research!
Note: Use wikipedia to find resources, but don't cite wikipedia itself! (See "Evaluating Web Pages" on the left).
What is species distribution?
- Species distribution is the manner in which a biological taxon is spatially arranged. The geographic limits of a particular taxon's distribution is its range, often represented as shaded areas on a map.
- Distribution patterns may change by season, distribution by humans, in response to the availability of resources, and other abiotic and biotic factors.
Using Journal Articles to Find Natural History Information
It is not the most obvious place to look, but you can find very reliable - and easily cited - natural history information in articles published in scientific journals. Search your species name and look at any of the articles that come up. Even if you are not interested in the topic that the article discusses (maybe you can not even understand it!), you should check the Introduction and Methods sections for information on your species.
Using Books to find Natural History Information
Books are another great resource for Natural History information. Information found in books is reliable and complete; however, it may not be the most recent.
Distribution Ecology by ISBN: 1461464145Publication Date: 2013-03-01This book brings together a set of approaches to the study of individual-species ecology based on the analysis of spatial variations of abundance. Distribution ecology assumes that ecological phenomena can be understood when analyzing the extrinsic (environmental) or intrinsic (physiological constraints, population mechanisms) that correlate with this spatial variation. Ecological processes depend on geographical scales, so their analysis requires following environmental heterogeneity.
Mapping Species Distributions by ISBN: 0521700027Publication Date: 2010-01-07Maps of species' distributions summarizes the methods used in species distribution modeling (also called niche modeling) and presents a framework for spatial prediction of species distributions based on the attributes (space, time, scale) of the data and questions being asked. The framework links theoretical ecological models of species distributions to spatial data on species and environment, and statistical models used for spatial prediction.
Textbooks
Textbooks are another great resource, for both natural history information and summaries of previous research. Textbooks are especially good for finding information on concepts you are going to include in your proposal. Your textbook Biogeography: an ecological and evolutionary approach is available at the library and is a good starting point.