How to format your references using the Avian Conservation and Ecology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Avian Conservation and Ecology (ACE). 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

Rausher, M. D. 2007. Comment on “Evolutionary paths underlying flower color variation in Antirrhinum.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 315:461; author reply 461.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hemmi, J. M., and J. Zeil. 2003. Robust judgement of inter-object distance by an arthropod. Nature 421:160–163.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wang, X., X. Chen, and L. Wang. 2014. Random allocation of pies promotes the evolution of fairness in the Ultimatum Game. Scientific reports 4:4534.

A journal article with 99 or more authors

Guo, Q., Bin Huang, J. Cheng, M. Seefelder, T. Engler, G. Pfeifer, P. Oeckl, M. Otto, F. Moser, M. Maurer, A. Pautsch, W. Baumeister, R. Fernández-Busnadiego, and S. Kochanek. 2018. The cryo-electron microscopy structure of huntingtin. Nature 555:117–120.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rassool, G. H. 2010. Addiction for Nurses. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Zhou, S., S. Zhang, and G. Karypis (Eds.). 2012. Advanced Data Mining and Applications: 8th International Conference, ADMA 2012, Nanjing, China, December 15-18, 2012. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Zhang, W., and Y. Cai. 2010. Isotropic Elasto-Plastic Damage Mechanics. Pages 135–215 in Y. Cai, editor. Continuum Damage Mechanics and Numerical Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

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 Avian Conservation and Ecology.

Blog post

Fang, J. 2015, July 30. City Sparrows Are More Aggressive Than Their Country Cousins. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/city-sparrows-are-more-aggressive-their-country-cousins/.

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. 1998. Student Financial Aid: Schools’ Experiences Using the National Student Loan Data System. 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

Poldervaart, P. G. 2010. A qualitative study of nursing didactic programs: Novice nurses’ perception of competence, confidence, and retention. Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ.

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

Greenhouse, L. 2007, May 22. Supreme Court to Address State Tax Breaks for Bonds. New York Times:C3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Rausher 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Hemmi and Zeil 2003, Rausher 2007).

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

Two authors: (Hemmi and Zeil 2003)
Three or more authors: (Guo et al. 2018)

About the journal

Full journal title	Avian Conservation and Ecology
Abbreviation	Avian Conserv. Ecol.
ISSN (online)	1712-6568
Scope	Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Ecology Nature and Landscape Conservation