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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Methods 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	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

Chin, J. W. (2009). Journal club. A molecular biologist gets excited about making designer proteins in cells. Nature, 457(7227), 239.

A journal article with 2 authors

van der Marel, D., & Sawatzky, G. A. (2014). Physics. An optical twist for triplet superconductors. Science (New York, N.Y.), 345(6193), 138–139.

A journal article with 3 authors

Foth, C., Tischlinger, H., & Rauhut, O. W. M. (2014). New specimen of Archaeopteryx provides insights into the evolution of pennaceous feathers. Nature, 511(7507), 79–82.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Schueler-Furman, O., Wang, C., Bradley, P., Misura, K., & Baker, D. (2005). Progress in modeling of protein structures and interactions. Science (New York, N.Y.), 310(5748), 638–642.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sullivan, D. M. (2012). Quantum Mechanics for Electrical Engineers. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Coniam, D. (Ed.). (2014). English Language Education and Assessment: Recent Developments in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland. Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Korporal, A., & Regensburger, G. (2014). Composing and Factoring Generalized Green’s Operators and Ordinary Boundary Problems. In M. Barkatou, T. Cluzeau, G. Regensburger, & M. Rosenkranz (Eds.), Algebraic and Algorithmic Aspects of Differential and Integral Operators: 5th International Meeting, AADIOS 2012, Held at the Applications of Computer Algebra Conference, ACA 2012, Sofia, Bulgaria, June 25-28, 2012, Selected and Invited Papers (pp. 116–134). 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 Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2016, June 15). Planet-Devouring Star Tells Us What Rocky Planets Are Made Of. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/planetdevouring-star-tells-us-what-rocky-planets-are-made-of/

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. (2003). Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures: Airport and Airway Trust Fund Excise Taxes (GAO-03-361R). 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

Hey, S. E. (2015). Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time”: A look at “The Abyss of the Birds” and socio-political issues, religion and performance practice in reference to the bible and the holocaust [Doctoral dissertation]. 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

Schweber, N., Barker, K., & Grant, J. (2014, October 20). In New Jersey, Young Players Recall Hazing. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Chin, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Chin, 2009; van der Marel & Sawatzky, 2014).

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

Two authors: (van der Marel & Sawatzky, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Schueler-Furman et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Methods in Ecology and Evolution
Abbreviation	Methods Ecol. Evol.
ISSN (print)	2041-210X
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Ecological Modelling