Library Guides: Global Change Biology: Finding Articles

Top Research Databases for Global Change Biology

Best for biology / ecology

BIOSIS Previews This link opens in a new window
Citations for journal articles, conference papers, and books on a wide variety of biological and biomedical topics. [1926 - present]
Indexes journals, books, and conference proceedings are indexed on a wide variety of biological and biomedical topics. An electronic version to the print counterparts, Biological Abstracts and Biological Abstracts/RRM.

*Tip: Try switching your BIOSIS (or Web of Science) search to All Databases (under Select a database) to search more content.*

Databases with broad coverage in the sciences

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Search across many disciplines and sources including articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
Lists journal articles, books, preprints, and technical reports in many subject areas (though more specialized article databases may cover any given field more completely). Can be used with "Get it at UC" to access the full text of many articles.

Use these instructions to set up access in Google Scholar to full-text via UCB subscriptions.

Scopus This link opens in a new window
Indexes journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences and more.
Contains over 50 million records with more than half the content originating from outside North America. Indexes over 21,000 journals, conference proceedings, trade publications, and book series in the sciences, technology, medicine, arts, and humanities.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Indexes leading journals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Allows cited reference searching. (ISI Web of Knowledge) [1900 - present]
Includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1990-present), Book Citation Index (2005-present), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present).

Additional specialized databases

Agricultural & Environmental Science Database This link opens in a new window
Find citations for journals, conference proceedings, books, reports, and government publications in the agricultural and environmental sciences. [1960 - present].
AES incorporates the formerly titled "Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management" database - which includes Environmental Impact Statements - plus the databases AGRICOLA (1970-current) and TOXLINE (1999-current).

Find Journals and Full Text

Use Journal Search to find online or print access to a particular journal.
To find full text when searching in an article database, look for links:
To find full text from a citation, paste the citation into the search box in UC Library Search.

Search Strategies

Building a search

To most effectively find relevant journal articles in Biosis Previews (and other databases), see instructions (from Bio1B) on how to develop keywords, build a search, and broaden or narrow a search.

For example, if my topic were how koalas are impacted by the frequent and severe fires that result from climate change, my search might be: koala* AND (wildfire* OR fire* OR bushfire*)

Using one good paper to find others

From your search results, you can identify a relevant article and then use the database's tools to help you find more.

For example, here is a relevant 2021 article near the top of my search results:

Quantifying the impacts of bushfire on populations of wild koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus): Insights from the 2019/20 fire season

You can see more recent papers that have cited this paper (6 papers), view this paper's reference list (45 papers), and find similar articles ("View Related Records") using the Citation Network:

Review Articles

When you are starting your research and exploring topics, it can be helpful to find a review paper (also called a literature review). This is a paper that summarizes and synthesizes primary research (individual studies published as research articles) on a topic. You can filter your search results to review papers under the Refine Results menu on the left.

Secondary menu

Global Change Biology: Finding Articles