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

Bourzac, K. 2015. Therapy: An immune one-two punch. Nature 528:S134-6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Klyachko, V. A., and M. B. Jackson. 2002. Capacitance steps and fusion pores of small and large-dense-core vesicles in nerve terminals. Nature 418:89–92.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lawrence, T., T. Hageman, and F. Balkwill. 2007. Cancer. Sex, cytokines, and cancer. Science (New York, N.Y.) 317:51–52.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Norris, D. R., P. P. Marra, R. Montgomerie, T. K. Kyser, and L. M. Ratcliffe. 2004. Reproductive effort, molting latitude, and feather color in a migratory songbird. Science (New York, N.Y.) 306:2249–2250.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wilmshurst, L. 2012. Clinical and Educational Child Psychology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Chichester, West Sussex, UK.

An edited book

Boyen, X., and X. Chen, editors. 2011. Provable Security: 5th International Conference, ProvSec 2011, Xi’an, China, October 16-18, 2011. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Schwarz, S., T. H. Tyas, and J. E. Prawitasari-Hadiyono. 2014. Methodological Basis of a Culture-Specific Coping Approach. Pages 129–152 in M. Zaumseil, S. Schwarz, M. von Vacano, G. B. Sullivan, and J. E. Prawitasari-Hadiyono, editors. Cultural Psychology of Coping with Disasters: The Case of an Earthquake in Java, Indonesia. Springer, New York, NY.

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, E. 2014, October 24. No, NASA Has Not Predicted A Global Blackout in December. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/no-nasa-did-not-predict-global-blackout-december/.

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. 1987. Highway Technology: The Structure for Conducting Highway Pavement Research. 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

Pezzolesi, M. G. 2008. Novel Mechanisms of PTEN Dysfunction in PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndromes. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

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

Eligon, J., and J. Martin. 2017, April 12. Kansas Republican Survives Tight Congressional Race to Win House Seat. New York Times:A16.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bourzac 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Klyachko and Jackson 2002, Bourzac 2015).

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

Two authors: (Klyachko and Jackson 2002)
Three or more authors: (Norris et al. 2004)

About the journal

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