How to format your references using the Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 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

Doncaster CP (2006) Comment on “On the regulation of populations of mammals, birds, fish, and insects” III. Science 311:1100; author reply 1100

A journal article with 2 authors

Sugita M, Shiba Y (2005) Genetic tracing shows segregation of taste neuronal circuitries for bitter and sweet. Science 309:781–785

A journal article with 3 authors

Puckett JG, Kelley DH, Ouellette NT (2014) Searching for effective forces in laboratory insect swarms. Sci Rep 4:4766

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Stolarski J, Meibom A, Przenioslo R, Mazur M (2007) A Cretaceous scleractinian coral with a calcitic skeleton. Science 318:92–94

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Retherford RD, Choe MK (1993) Statistical Models for Causal Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Balogh A, Bykov A, Eastwood J, Kaastra J (eds) (2016) Multi-scale Structure Formation and Dynamics in Cosmic Plasmas, 1st ed. 2016. Springer, New York, NY

A chapter in an edited book

Basu A, Bonakdarpour B, Bozga M, Sifakis J (2010) Systematic Correct Construction of Self-stabilizing Systems: A Case Study. In: Dolev S, Cobb J, Fischer M, Yung M (eds) Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems: 12th International Symposium, SSS 2010, New York, NY, USA, September 20-22, 2010. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 4–18

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 Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2015) Cat Eyes Provide Solution For Looking Inside Nuclear Reactors. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/cats-eyes-provide-solution-looking-inside-nuclear-reactors/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (1999) Year 2000 Computing Challenge: FAA Continues to Make Important Strides, But Vulnerabilities Remain. 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

Coleman ED (2014) The Nature of Leadership: A Case Study of Distributed Leadership Amidst A Participative Change Effort. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University

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

Brantley B (2017) Daughter, You’ve Turned Into Your Mother. New York Times C1

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Doncaster 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Sugita and Shiba 2005; Doncaster 2006).

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

Two authors: (Sugita and Shiba 2005)
Three or more authors: (Stolarski et al. 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Abbreviation	Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.
ISSN (print)	0340-5443
ISSN (online)	1432-0762
Scope	Animal Science and Zoology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics