The Encyclopedia of Life Sciences
(ELS) is an encyclopedia

Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....

 that spans the entire spectrum of life sciences and is published by Wiley-Blackwell.

ELS is available online and as a 32-volume print edition. The online edition was launched in April 2001, with the print edition published in January 2002. At the end of 2004, ELS was acquired by Wiley-Blackwell from the Nature Publishing Group

Nature Publishing Group

Nature Publishing Group is an international publishing company that publishes academic journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine...

.

Articles are written by experts in the field and cover subjects from areas as diverse as ecology and cell biology. As of July 2010, there are more than 4,600 article topics published in ELS online. Full access to ELS requires a subscription.

As of April 2011 eLS contained more than 4,700 articles. Added monthly over 400 articles are added to eLS each year.