How to format your references using the Ecosystems citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Sun L. 2015. Inorganic chemistry. A closer mimic of the oxygen evolution complex of photosystem II. Science 348:635–6.
A journal article with 2 authors
Greenamyre JT, Hastings TG. 2004. Biomedicine. Parkinson’s--divergent causes, convergent mechanisms. Science 304:1120–2.
A journal article with 3 authors
Manoukis NC, Hall B, Geib SM. 2014. A computer model of insect traps in a landscape. Sci Rep 4:7015.
A journal article with 99 or more authors
Roca AL, Bar-Gal GK, Eizirik E, Helgen KM, Maria R, Springer MS, O’Brien SJ, Murphy WJ. 2004. Mesozoic origin for West Indian insectivores. Nature 429:649–51.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Duffy DJ. 2006. Introduction to C++ for Financial Engineers. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd
An edited book
Johnson BC, Faill DK, editors. 2015. Glee and New Directions for Social Change. Rotterdam: SensePublishers
A chapter in an edited book
Simonet A. 2011. Automatic Production of an Operational Information System from a Domain Ontology Enriched with Behavioral Properties. In: Bellatreche L, Mota Pinto F, editors. Model and Data Engineering: First International Conference, MEDI 2011, Óbidos, Portugal, September 28-30, 2011. Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. pp 4–17.

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 Ecosystems.

Blog post
Andrew D. 2016. Dusty Plasma In The Universe And In The Laboratory. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/dusty-plasma-in-the-universe-and-in-the-laboratory/. Last accessed 30/10/2018

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. 2016. Amtrak: Better Reporting, Planning, and Improved Financial Information Could Enhance Decision Making. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
Lee S. 2005. The Influence of Product Involvement and Fan Identification on Response to Team Sponsors’ Products.

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
Crow K. 2003. A Noble Little Troupe Faces A Cruel Foe: the Rent. New York Times:145.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sun 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Greenamyre and Hastings 2004; Sun 2015).

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

  • Two authors: (Greenamyre and Hastings 2004)
  • Three or more authors: (Roca and others 2004)

About the journal

Full journal titleEcosystems
AbbreviationEcosystems
ISSN (print)1432-9840
ISSN (online)1435-0629
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology
Environmental Chemistry

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