BIOL 450 - Techniques in Ecology

Geographic distribution of plant or animal species are usually located in identification or field guides. These can be found in either the reference section of the Vanier Library, or on the 3rd floor (regular collection). Try searching Sofia to locate field guides specific to your chosen species. Here's an example: (amphibian*) and (identif* or field guide*)

You can also browse the following shelves of the reference section of the library to find guides:

• Flowers and Trees: QK97 - QK495
  Examples:
  • Plantes sauvages des lacs, rivières et tourbières
  • A field guide to western trees
  • North American trees
  • Trees in Canada
• Mosses, lichen, fungi (mushrooms): QK540 - QK617
• Insects: QL460 - QL600
  Examples:
  • The Audubon Society field guide to North American insects and spiders
  • The butterflies of Canada
• Fish: QL600 - QL635
  Example:
  • Peterson field guide to freshwater fishes of North America north of Mexico
• Reptiles and Amphibians: QL640 - QL670
  Example:
  • Guide and reference to the amphibians of eastern and central North America
• Birds: QL670 - QL700
  Example:
  • Birds of North America
• Mammals: QL700 - QL737
  Example:
  • Mammals of North America

• Encyclopedia of Life
• NatureServe Explorer
  • You will need to download the ESRI ArcGIS software to view the distribution maps
• AmphibiaWeb
• Tree Species Range Maps
• USDA Plants database

See also:

• Online classifications, keys, field guides
• Online zoology sources

Physical variables can include precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, soil, vegatation, elevation.

• Atlas of Canada:
  • Precipitation maps
  • Elevation maps (relief)
  • Vegetation Cover, 1993
  • Evapotranspriration
  • Temperature maps:
    • Mean Daily Maximum Temperatures: January April July October
    • Mean Daily Minimum Temperatures: January April July October
  • You can also explore through the Atlas of Canada map collections or search Open Government to search for maps not listed in the Atlas of Canada map collections.
• United States Geological Survey (USGS): maps of the United States that cover biology, the environment, geology, etc. 

More detailled maps or geospatial products are listed below. Note that some products require the use of specialized viewers.

• Canadian Digital Elevation Model
  A list of free viewers appears at the bottom of the page.
• Land Cover.
  The types of land include agriculture, forest, wetland, etc. A list of land cover publications appears at the bottom of the page.
• Soils of Canada.
  These national scale thematic maps display the distribution and areal extent of soil attributes such as drainage, texture of parent material, kind of material, and classification of soils in terms of Soil Order and Great Group.

See also

• Maps available at Concordia (online and print)
• Other online maps (McGill University)
• Geospatial data available at Concordia (online)
• Other online geospatial data (McGill University)

Try searching the following databases for your species and its geographic distribution.
Example search: ("polar bear" or "polar bears") AND ((geographic OR spatial) AND distribution)

• BIOSIS
• GeoBASE

If you need further assistance with finding maps, please contact Alex Guindon (geography librarian) at alex.guindon@concordia.ca