How to format your references using the Acta Oecologica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Oecologica. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Drake, N., 2015. How to catch a cloud. Nature 522, 115–116.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mayr, G., Manegold, A., 2013. Can ovarian follicles fossilize? Nature 499, E1.

A journal article with 3 authors

Togashi, T., Sasaki, H., Yoshimura, J., 2014. A geometrical approach explains Lake Ball (Marimo) formations in the green alga, Aegagropila linnaei. Sci. Rep. 4, 3761.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Iwai, M., Pack, C.-G., Takenaka, Y., Sako, Y., Nakano, A., 2013. Photosystem II antenna phosphorylation-dependent protein diffusion determined by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. Sci. Rep. 3, 2833.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Schulze, V., 2005. Modern Mechanical Surface Treatment. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG.

An edited book

Salvetti, M.V., Geurts, B., Meyers, J., Sagaut, P. (Eds.), 2011. Quality and Reliability of Large-Eddy Simulations II, ERCOFTAC Series. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

A chapter in an edited book

Türker, N., Toh, Z.Q., Karagiannis, T.C., Licciardi, P.V., 2014. Anti-inflammatory Effects of Probiotics and Their Metabolites: Possible Role for Epigenetic Effects, in: Maulik, N., Karagiannis, T. (Eds.), Molecular Mechanisms and Physiology of Disease: Implications for Epigenetics and Health. Springer, New York, NY, pp. 127–150.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Acta Oecologica.

Blog post

Andrew, D., 2016. Surprising Ways That Caffeine Affects Your Body And Brain [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/surprising-ways-that-caffeine-affects-your-body-and-brain/ (accessed 10.30.18).

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office, 2009. Higher Education: Approaches to Attract and Fund International Students in the United States and Abroad (No. GAO-09-379). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Littlefield, S., 2017. Application of Discrete Event Simulation to Modeling Reliability of Highly Parallel Systems with Common Cause Failures (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Crow, K., 2001. You Say Clutter, I Say Canopy, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off. New York Times 144.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Drake, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Drake, 2015; Mayr and Manegold, 2013).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Mayr and Manegold, 2013)
Three or more authors: (Iwai et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Oecologica
Abbreviation	Acta Oecol. (Montrouge)
ISSN (print)	1146-609X
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Nature and Landscape Conservation