Biological Abstracts

Biological Abstracts is published by BIOSIS and was established in 1926 in response to a need for a centralized source of life science information that would provide accurate, indexed references and abstracts to the published literature.

Subject, Author, and Corporate Author, Biosytematic, Generic, and Concept Indices are provided for each volume. For example, suppose you were searching for the abstract and bibliographic information on an article on The Effects of Chlorine Pollution on Growth and Respiration Rates of Larval Lobsters (Homarus americanus).

You might begin by looking in the Subject Index under chlorine in which case you would find:

SUBJECT CONTEXT KEYWORD REF. NO.
GHT/ THE EFFECTS OF CHLORINE POLLUTION ON GROWTH 23330


This Subject Index is an example of a permuterm index in which the article is indexed under one or more keywords in the title with the title permuted around the position of these keywords. For example the above article can also be found in the Subject Index under the keyword growth:

SUBJECT CONTEXT KEYWORD REF. NO.
LORINE POLLUTION ON GROWTH AND RESPIRATION RATES 23330


The abstract number, 23330, needs, of course, to be combined with the appropriate volume number to give the complete abstract number, 74:23330.

You might also consult the Biosystematic Index using the fact that lobsters belong to the higher taxonomic phylum arthropods and to the lower taxonomic class and order of crustacea and malacostraca:

ARTHROPODA
Crustacea
    • Malacostraca

        Environmental and Industrial Toxicology

          23330


The Biosystematic Index requires that you be able to correctly classify your organism according to its taxonomic categories of phylum, class, order, and family.

You can also search using the Generic Index, which requires of knowledge of the genus and species of the organism. For example in the Generic Index under the genus Homarus and the species americanus we find:

GENUS-SPECIES MAJOR CONCEPT REF. NO.
HOMARUS-AMERICANUS TOXIC INDUS 23330


You could also search in the Concept Index under the broad topic of the pathology-crustacea of invertebrata, where you would find:

CONCEPT HEADING
INVERTEBRATA,MORPHOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND PATHOLOGY-CRUSTACEA

    23330 23545 24002 24009 24121 24332

    24339 24676 24688 24901 25918 24987


Montana Tech has paper copies of 106 volumes of Biological Abstracts extending back to 1979. Electronic searching of Biological Abstracts using BIOSIS, the on-line version of Biological Abstracts, is available through the Montana Tech Library.

Assignment Notes:

Note that when you are asked to locate an article published in a given year, that year is the year that the article was published and may be different from the year in which the abstract appeared.

References:

Biological Abstracts, Biological Information Services of Biological Abstracts, Philadelphia, (1926).