How to format your references using the Ecology Letters citation style

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

Morrow, R. (2008). Engineering. Wi-Fi-Fo-Fum. Science, 320, 1018–1019.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tumer, E.C. & Brainard, M.S. (2007). Performance variability enables adaptive plasticity of “crystallized” adult birdsong. Nature, 450, 1240–1244.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sharon, E., Cohen, G. & Fineberg, J. (2001). Propagating solitary waves along a rapidly moving crack front. Nature, 410, 68–71.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Dehlinger, G., Diehl, L., Gennser, U., Sigg, H., Faist, J., Ensslin, K., et al. (2000). Intersubband electroluminescence from silicon-based quantum cascade structures. Science, 290, 2277–2280.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Steele, D. (2011). From Therapist to Coach. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Helfert, M., Desprez, F., Ferguson, D. & Leymann, F. (Eds.). (2014). Cloud Computing and Services Science: Third International Conference, CLOSER 2013, Aachen, Germany, May 8-10, 2013, Revised Selected Papers. Communications in Computer and Information Science. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Dobkin, P.L. & Hassed, C.S. (2016). Steps for Starting and Sustaining Programs. In: Mindful Medical Practitioners: A Guide for Clinicians and Educators (ed. Hassed, C.S.). Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 65–74.

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 Ecology Letters.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2016). Antarctica’s Massive Crack Is Growing At A Worrying Rate. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/antarcticas-massive-crack-is-growing-at-a-worrying-rate/. Last accessed 30 October 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. (1987). Small Business Act: NASA’s Disadvantaged Business Advocate Not Reporting to Proper Management Level ( No. GGD-87-50). 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

Salazar, A. (2012). Small school, big gains: A case study of urban high school reform. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, 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

Feeney, K. (2011). No Frills, Just Sweet Treats. New York Times, NJ9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Morrow 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Morrow 2008; Tumer & Brainard 2007).

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

Two authors: (Tumer & Brainard 2007)
Three or more authors: (Dehlinger et al. 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Ecology Letters
Abbreviation	Ecol. Lett.
ISSN (print)	1461-023X
ISSN (online)	1461-0248
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics