Biodiversity Hotspots: Websites

Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) - Funds conservation in biodiversity hotspots worldwide.

Conservation International: Biodiversity Hotspots - More information on hotspots and why they matter. An investor in the CEPF.

Biodiversity Topic Portal - From Gale Science in Context, an overview and various types of content about biodiversity.

Microsfere: Guinean Forests of West Africa Biodiversity Hotspot - Information from an organization focused on West Africa.

Environmental Literacy Council: Hotspots of Biodiversity - The right sidebar links to information about specific hotspots, including Indo-Burma, Madagascar, and the Mediterranean Basin.

Lincoln Community School: Biodiversity Hotspots - Well-sourced overviews of selected hotspots, including the mountains of Central Asia, the Guinean forests, Madagascar, and the Mediterranean Basin.

Panaromas: Biodiversity in the Tropical Andes - Overview of the Tropical Andes hotspot, with related links, from the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

When searching for information on the Internet, it's important to remember that anyone can post anything. Always evaluate websites critically. Follow the five W's:

• Who wrote the article? What are their credentials, and are they sponsored by someone?
• What relevance does the article have to your research question?
• When was the article published? Is it out of date?
• Where does their information come from? Do they provide sources?
• Why was this site created? What seems to be its purpose?

Get more out of Google with a few tricks:

• Use "AND" between keywords to search them together (i.e. "madagascar AND biodiversity"), and "OR" between them to substitute one for the other (i.e. "madagascar OR indian ocean").
• Use the minus sign "-" to exclude a term (i.e. "andes -mints").
• Search a specific domain using "site:" followed by the domain after your keyword. For instance, "biodiversity site:.edu" will provide results only from academic institutions.

For more, check out Google's own guide to refining searches.