How to format your references using the Ecology citation style

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

Witmer, L. M. 2001. Nostril position in dinosaurs and other vertebrates and its significance for nasal function. Science (New York, N.Y.) 293:850–853.

A journal article with 2 authors

Appavoo, K., and R. F. Haglund Jr. 2014. Polarization selective phase-change nanomodulator. Scientific reports 4:6771.

A journal article with 3 authors

Goldman, S. A., M. Nedergaard, and M. S. Windrem. 2012. Glial progenitor cell-based treatment and modeling of neurological disease. Science (New York, N.Y.) 338:491–495.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Song, C.-L., Y.-L. Wang, P. Cheng, Y.-P. Jiang, W. Li, T. Zhang, Z. Li, K. He, L. Wang, J.-F. Jia, H.-H. Hung, C. Wu, X. Ma, X. Chen, and Q.-K. Xue. 2011. Direct observation of nodes and twofold symmetry in FeSe superconductor. Science (New York, N.Y.) 332:1410–1413.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Vitale, J. 2007. The Seven Lost Secrets of Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Rotini, F. 2012. Re-engineering of Products and Processes: How to Achieve Global Success in the Changing Marketplace. Page (Y. Borgianni and G. Cascini, Eds.). Springer, London.

A chapter in an edited book

Howell, A. J., C. L. M. Keyes, and H.-A. Passmore. 2013. Flourishing Among Children and Adolescents: Structure and Correlates of Positive Mental Health, and Interventions for Its Enhancement. Pages 59–79 in C. Proctor and P. A. Linley, editors. Research, Applications, and Interventions for Children and Adolescents: A Positive Psychology Perspective. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

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 Ecology.

Blog post

Andrew, D. 2017, January 18. Using Electricity, Not Molecules, To Switch Cells On And Off. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/using-electricity-not-molecules-to-switch-cells-on-and-off/.

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. 1979. Science and Engineering Manpower Forecasting: Its Use in Policymaking. 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

Hoffmann, M. 2015. An exploratory study: Mobile device use for academics. Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA.

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, December 4. Justices Express Skepticism in a Discrimination Case. New York Times:A26.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Witmer 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Witmer 2001, Appavoo and Haglund 2014).

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

Two authors: (Appavoo and Haglund 2014)
Three or more authors: (Song et al. 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	Ecology
Abbreviation	Ecology
ISSN (print)	0012-9658
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics