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

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

Molnar P. 2011. Jack oliver (1923-2011). Nature 470: 176.

A journal article with 2 authors

Brumfiel G and Marris E. 2006. Physics wins the US budget race. Nature 439: 644–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rohr RP, Saavedra S, and Bascompte J. 2014. Ecological networks. On the structural stability of mutualistic systems. Science 345: 1253497.

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Yakata S, Tanaka T, Kiseki K, et al. 2013. Wide range tuning of resonant frequency for a vortex core in a regular triangle magnet. Sci Rep 3: 3567.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lau JYF. 2011. An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Martin G and Müller W (Eds). 2005. UML for SOC Design. Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Waseda Y, Matsubara E, and Shinoda K. 2011. Diffraction from Polycrystalline Samples and Determination of Crystal Structure. In: Matsubara E, Shinoda K (Eds). X-Ray Diffraction Crystallography: Introduction, Examples and Solved Problems. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

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 the Environment.

Blog post

Luntz S. 2016. Study Suggests That Humans Are Still Evolving. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/study-suggests-that-humans-are-still-evolving/. Viewed 30 Oct 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. 2005. Amtrak: Improved Management and Controls over Food and Beverage Service Needed. 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

Scott E. 2013. Effects of cultural nutritional education among Hispanic women with diabetes (Doctoral dissertation). Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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. 2007. Cupcakes a Chicken Can Love. New York Times NJ12.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Molnar 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Brumfiel and Marris 2006; Molnar 2011).

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

Two authors: (Brumfiel and Marris 2006)
Three or more authors: (Yakata et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Abbreviation	Front. Ecol. Environ.
ISSN (print)	1540-9295
ISSN (online)	1540-9309
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Ecology