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

Sherwood S (2015) Climate science: The Sun and the rain. Nature 528:200–201

A journal article with 2 authors

Rees DC, Howard JB (2003) The interface between the biological and inorganic worlds: iron-sulfur metalloclusters. Science 300:929–931

A journal article with 3 authors

Rohani P, Zhong X, King AA (2010) Contact network structure explains the changing epidemiology of pertussis. Science 330:982–985

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Sugden A, Ash C, Hanson B, Zahn L (2009) Happy birthday, Mr. Darwin. Introduction. Science 323:727

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Scott K (2017) Sustainable and Green Electrochemical Science and Technology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Canadell JG, Pataki DE, Pitelka LF (eds) (2007) Terrestrial Ecosystems in a Changing World. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Makris G, Filippidis K (2013) Fiscal Policy Under the EMU: Facts and Prospects. In: Karasavvoglou A, Polychronidou P (eds) Balkan and Eastern European Countries in the Midst of the Global Economic Crisis. Physica-Verlag HD, Heidelberg, pp 63–74

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

Andrew D (2016) A Century After The Battle Of The Somme, Can We finally Explain Shell Shock? In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/a-century-after-the-battle-of-the-somme-can-we-finally-explain-shell-shock/. 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 (1997) Federal Education Funding: Multiple Programs and Lack of Data Raise Efficiency and Effectiveness Concerns. 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

Mohajer R (2012) A transcendental approach to John Coltrane: applying concepts of spirituality to Giant Steps into the Cosmos. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Qiu L (2017) Fact-Checking Assertions About the President’s Travel Ban. New York Times A19

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sherwood 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Rees and Howard 2003; Sherwood 2015).

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

Two authors: (Rees and Howard 2003)
Three or more authors: (Sugden et al. 2009)

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