Keeping up to Speed on the Bryology Literature

There is a phenomenal level of information and science production in the world today. Keeping up to speed on the latest research can be challenging. I have a list of keywords that I use to search through a couple different biological science search engines that the University of Connecticut subscribe (Web of Science and BIOSIS Previews). I try to run this search at least every other month.

Near the end of each volume of The Bryologist is a section entitled Recent literature on bryophytes. This is a great resource for keeping up to speed on the bryology literature. Listed in alphabetical order are a large number of bryology focused papers. I am not sure how the authors assemble this list. I would guess they do some searching using keywords through google scholar and have a list of bryology focused journals that they pull articles from. They also include articles published in languages other than english, but mention if there is an english abstract. If you missed the annual Botanical Society of America conference they include the bryology related abstracts in the list. I think that this is nice because it reminds me about the newest research that folks are working on in their laboratories. These presentations are often about research that is still a year or more away from publication. Doctoral dissertations and Master's degree theses are listed too. These publications can be pretty hard to locate, so it is quite nice that they are included. If the title does not have an obvious bryology connection or the species studied is not listed there is a brief note after the citation with this information.

Next time you are looking for the most recent bryology literature I would highly recommend checking out this list before searching around on your own.