How to format your references using the Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Zhu, Z. (2015). Astrophysics: Growing planet brought to light. Nature 527, 310–311.

A journal article with 2 authors

Xia, Y., and Gong, J.-P. (2014). Impact of recombinant globular adiponectin on early warm ischemia-reperfusion injury in rat bile duct after liver transplantation. Sci. Rep. 4, 6426.

A journal article with 3 authors

Zhu, G., Golding, G. B., and Dean, A. M. (2005). The selective cause of an ancient adaptation. Science 307, 1279–1282.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Wang, X., Zhuang, J., Peng, Q., and Li, Y. (2005). A general strategy for nanocrystal synthesis. Nature 437, 121–124.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Williams, A. E. (2011). Immunology. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Venghaus, H. ed. (2006). Wavelength Filters in Fibre Optics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Ahmed, M., Singh, V. K., and Upadhyay, R. S. (2012). “Brassica Rhizosphere-Microbe Interactions and Their Role in Phytoremediation,” in The Plant Family Brassicaceae: Contribution Towards Phytoremediation Environmental Pollution., eds. N. A. Anjum, I. Ahmad, M. E. Pereira, A. C. Duarte, S. Umar, and N. A. Khan (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands), 139–152.

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 Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. (2017). NASA Satellite Releases First Fascinating Map Of Lightning On Earth. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-satellite-releases-first-fascinating-map-of-lightning-on-earth/ [Accessed October 30, 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 (1994). Medical Education: Curriculum and Financing Strategies Need to Encourage Primary Care Training. 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

Annan, F. (2012). Spatial pattern of yield distributions: implications for crop insurance.

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

Stewart, J. B. (2017). On Trump Tax Form, a Decade’s Worth of Questions. New York Times, B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Zhu, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Xia and Gong, 2014; Zhu, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Xia and Gong, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Wang et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Abbreviation	Front. Ecol. Evol.
ISSN (online)	2296-701X
Scope