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 Good software for research, analysis and writing is often costly to purchase but high quality free and/or Open Source software is increasingly available and is often as good as, and sometimes better, than the commercial equivalent. Here we provide information on some of the best software tools of which we are aware. If you know of good tools that we haven't mentioned, please let us know!
Analysis and statistics
Distance allows you to design and analyse distance sampling surveys of wildlife populations. Requires Windows. Languages English.
EstimateS computes a variety of biodiversity functions, estimators and indices based on biotic sampling data. Some features require species relative abundance data, others only species presence/absence data. Requires Windows or Mac. Languages English.
Genstat Discovery is a free version of GenStat, a well-known system for data analysis and statistics, for use by not-for-profit research organizations, charities and educational institutes in the developing world. Requires Windows. Languages English.
Instat is a general statistical package that is simple to use. Includes special facilities for the processing of climatic data. Requires Windows. Languages English.
MYSTAT is statistical software designed specifically for use by students. It has many of the core statistical functions available in the well-iknown SYSTAT, including standard statistical and graphical functionality and advanced functions such as the Loglinear Model and Logit, Probit and Nonlinear Regression. Requires Windows. Languages English.
 R is a software environment for statistical computing and graphics. Widely used by conservationists and ecologists, it provides a variety of statistical and graphical techniques and has many additional packages, including some for ecological analysis. R is complex but much help is available, both with the system itself and elsewhere (e.g. R Help Center). The RKWard graphical frontend is our favourite way of accessing R. Alternatively, a simple menu system is available for many basic statistical analyses. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages English.
Resources to help in using Excel for statistical work provides useful advice, resources and tutorials for using the spreadsheet Excel for statistics, including advice on data entry, and important tips and warnings. Requires Windows and Excel. Languages English.
SSC-Stat is a statistical add-in for Excel, strengthening the spreadsheet's data management, graphics and descriptive statistics. Requires Windows and Excel. Languages English.
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Bibliography, writing & internet research tools
Google Docs is a system to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations online, and is useful for sharing and collaboration. Files can be uploaded and downloaded in many standard formats. Requires Web browser. Languages Many.
Google Scholar provides a simple way to search for scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources. Requires Web browser. Languages Many.
Mendeley is a bibliography tool for organizing and citing articles and for storing PDFs. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages English.
OpenOffice is an office software suite. It can read and write files from many office software packages and can be used with Zotero. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages Many.
Zotero is one of our favourite software tools. It is a web browser extension to help you collect, manage and cite your research sources. It can capture citation information from web pages, store PDFs, document files, images, links and web pages, integrates with OpenOffice and Microsoft Word, and can download references directly from Google Scholar and similar resources. To cite references and build a reference list you need the appropriate OpenOffice or Microsoft word plug-in. There is a style for the plug-in that will cite and format a bibliography in Oryx style (courtesy of Alex Diment of the Institute of Wildlife Research, University of Sydney)—after installing Zotero and the appropriate wordprocessor plugin simply click this link to install the style. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux running the Firefox web browser. Languages Many.
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Data
ARKive is a collection of thousands of videos, images and fact-files illustrating the world's species. Requires Web browser. Languages English.
Free spatial data includes country and continental level, global climate, species occurrence and elevation data, and LandSat images, all in standard formats that you can use with QGIS, DIVA-GIS or other Geographical Information Systems.
The Global Biodiversity and Information Facility provides open access to biodiversity data. Requires Web browser. Languages English.
 The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species provides conservation status and distribution information to catalogue and highlight taxa that have been globally evaluated using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria and are facing a high risk of global extinction. Requires Web browser. Languages English.
The World Database on Protected Areas provides the most comprehensive dataset on protected areas worldwide. You can search protected areas data by site name, country, and international programme or convention. Requires Web browser. Languages English.
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Geographical Information Systems
ArcExplorer is a GIS data viewer that performs basic functions such as view, navigate and query map data. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages English.
DIVA-GIS is a GIS that is particularly useful for mapping and analysing biodiversity data, such as the distribution of species, or other point distributions. Requires Windows or Mac. Languages English.
Google Earth lets you view satellite imagery, maps and terrain, and add layers (see, for example, the ARKive layer and the WWF Project layer). Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages Many.
GRASS is a GIS for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/map production, spatial modelling, and visualization. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages English.
 Quantum GIS is a GIS that lets you browse and create map data. It supports many common spatial data formats and has plug-ins to do things such as display tracks from your GPS. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages English.
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Graphics
For editing photographs and figures it is useful to have two pieces of software. A raster (bitmap) graphics editor for photographs and any other images that are in raster format, and a vector graphics editor for figures and maps that are in vector format. A raster graphics image or bitmap is bound to a specific resolution and stores an image as a grid of pixels. Vector graphics is a resolution-independent description of the actual shapes and objects that you see in the image; a rasterization engine uses this information to determine how to plot each line and curve at any resolution or zoom level. Raster graphics tend to be better for photographs and some kinds of artistic drawings, whereas vector graphics are more suitable for technical illustrations such as scientific figures and maps. It is often helpful to export an illustration or figure in vector format (e.g. EPS, SVG) from a scientific graphics package or GIS and do final touch-up editing in a vector graphics editor.
Gimp is a raster graphics editor—i.e. you can use it for files in TIF, JPG, PNG or other raster formats. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages Many.
Inkscape is a vector graphics editor, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Requires Windows, Mac or Linux. Languages Many.
IrfanView is a graphics viewer and converter (it is useful, for example, for viewing and printing an EPS file exported from GIS software, to check that the file looks as it should). Requires Windows. Languages English.
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Operating systems
The ultimate in free software is a free operating system. There are several systems available but the best choice is probably one of the widely used Linux operating systems, in particular Ubuntu (or Kubuntu), Fedora or openSUSE. These systems normally include software such as OpenOffice, and most of the software tools mentioned above are avaialable for Linux. If you have an ageing computer with low resources you could use Xubuntu, which is a version of Ubuntu designed to run on older computers. If you need to run some Windows software (such as Distance) you can use Wine, which can be used to run Windows software on a Linux operating system. Requires A downloaded CD image for the required operating system, which then needs to be written to a CD and used to install the chosen operating system. Languages Many.
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