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

Larson, H. (2015). The world must accept that the HPV vaccine is safe. Nature, 528, 9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Resing, J.A. & Barrett, P.M. (2014). Ocean chemistry: Fingerprints of a trace nutrient. Nature, 511, 164–165.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lavender, K.L., Davis, R.E. & Owens, W.B. (2000). Mid-depth recirculation observed in the interior Labrador and Irminger seas by direct velocity measurements. Nature, 407, 66–69.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Mikosch, J., Trippel, S., Eichhorn, C., Otto, R., Lourderaj, U., Zhang, J.X., et al. (2008). Imaging nucleophilic substitution dynamics. Science, 319, 183–186.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ferrant, J.-L., Gilson, M., Jobert, S., Mayer, M., Montini, L., Ouellette, M., et al. (2013). Synchronous Ethernet and IEEE 1588 in Telecoms. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ USA.

An edited book

Watson, A. & Winbourne, P. (Eds.). (2008). New Directions for Situated Cognition in Mathematics Education. Mathematics Education Library. Springer US, Boston, MA.

A chapter in an edited book

Schmidt, K.-H. (2015). University Studies at Hardenberg’s and Humboldt’s Time and the Professionalization of University Studies Today. In: The University According to Humboldt: History, Policy, and Future Possibilities, SpringerBriefs in Economics (ed. Backhaus, J.G.). Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 53–65.

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

Davis, J. (2015). Is Commercial Fishing Driving The Evolution Of Fish? IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/commercial-fishing-driving-evolution-fish/. 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. (1998). International Space Station: U.S. Life-Cycle Funding Requirements ( No. NSIAD-98-147). 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

Moreau, G.A. (2009). Touch and psychotherapy: A journey to the depths of the unconscious and back again. Doctoral dissertation. Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, 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

Brantley, B. (2017). Upending a Whodunit. 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 (Larson 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Larson 2015; Resing & Barrett 2014).

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

Two authors: (Resing & Barrett 2014)
Three or more authors: (Mikosch et al. 2008)

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