Scholarly or peer-reviewed databases refer to the process of verifying accuracy, authority, and overall credibility of the article by a group of experts using various criteria including literature review, research methods used, data, conclusions and bibliographic sources cited.
Popular resources such as magazines, though they may be deemed professional, typically aren't academically oriented as peer-reviewed journals. Consequently, they do not contain the level of citations, bibliographic information or other criteria listed above verifying the level of accuracy of the article.
In addition to searching the library catalog, the following is a list of databases providing full-text access to scholarly research in ecology.