Subject Guides: Marine Sciences: Background Information

Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, and Handbooks

Use dictionaries, encyclopedias and handbooks to learn about a topic and to find keywords and subject terms to use when searching indexes and databases.

Looking for less specific encyclopedia's, dictionaries, handbooks, manuals or atlases? Use our Reference Sources resource guide for help. This guide lists both print and electronic resources.

Online Resources

Catalog of Fishes
The Catalog of Fishes is the authoritative reference for taxonomic fish names, featuring a searchable on-line database. From the California Academy of Sciences.
The Echinoid Directory
Designed and created by Andrew B Smith, Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum.
Encyclopedia of Life
Online directory of all 1.8 million known species on Earth.
Coral Disease and Bleaching Observations
The ReefBase Coral Bleaching and Coral Diseases dataset provides observation details of coral bleaching and disease occurrences around the world. The data was compiled by the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC) and have been updated by ReefBase since 2002.
Ichthyology Primary Types Imagebase
The California Academy of Sciences Department of Ichthyology type collection contains over 37,000 specimens.
Marine Life of the Gulf of Maine
Image gallery and species information. From Andrew J. Martinez Photography.
MBLWHOI Library Digital Herbarium
Flora of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and associated coastal islands with over 2,200 algae specimens. Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
National Exotic Marine and Estuarine Species Information System (NEMESIS)
NEMESIS is a resource for information on non-native (or exotic) species that occur in coastal marine waters of the United States. From the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC)
NOAA Fisheries
Find information about fisheries in the US.
Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC)
PODAAC is the premier data center for measurements focused on ocean surface topography (OST), sea surface temperature (SST), ocean winds, sea surface salinity (SSS), gravity, ocean circulation and sea ice. From the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography Marine Vertebrate Collection
University of California, San Diego.
State of the Gulf of Maine
A report covering various factors related to the Gulf of Maine, including biodiversity and climate change impacts.
World List of Marine, Freshwater, and Terrestrial Isopod Crustaceans
Originally from the Smithsonian Institute, now hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute and overseen by an editorial board.
WoRMS World Register of Marine Species
The World Register of Marine Species aims to provide the most authoritative list of names of all marine species globally, ever published.
State of the Gulf of Maine