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

Gilmore, G. (2004). Astronomy. The short spectacular life of a superstar. Science (New York, N.Y.), 304(5679), 1915–1916.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chilingarian, I., & Zolotukhin, I. (2015). Galaxy evolution. Isolated compact elliptical galaxies: stellar systems that ran away. Science (New York, N.Y.), 348(6233), 418–421.

A journal article with 3 authors

Su, Q.-P., Yang, C.-P., & Zheng, S.-B. (2014). Fast and simple scheme for generating NOON states of photons in circuit QED. Scientific Reports, 4, 3898.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Currie, C. R., Wong, B., Stuart, A. E., Schultz, T. R., Rehner, S. A., Mueller, U. G., … Straus, N. A. (2003). Ancient tripartite coevolution in the attine ant-microbe symbiosis. Science (New York, N.Y.), 299(5605), 386–388.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dorsey, J. R. (2009). Y-Size Your Business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Sun, J., Jiao, W., Wu, H., & Lu, M. (Eds.). (2014). China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC) 2014 Proceedings: Volume I (Vol. 303). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Muntwyler, S. D., Beyeler, F., & Nelson, B. J. (2011). Microforce-Sensing Tools and Methodologies for Micromechanical Metrology. In C. Clévy, M. Rakotondrabe, & N. Chaillet (Eds.), Signal Measurement and Estimation Techniques for Micro and Nanotechnology (pp. 93–131). New York, NY: 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

Andrew, E. (2015, October 22). Are We Recycling Too Much Of Our Trash? Retrieved 30 October 2018, from https://www.iflscience.com/environment/are-we-recycling-too-much-our-trash/

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. (1986). University Finances: Research Revenues and Expenditures (No. RCED-86-162BR). 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

Bornheimer, M. E. (2010). The influence of leadership development programs on the community college leadership shortage: A case study (Doctoral dissertation). Northcentral University, Scottsdale, AZ.

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

Kenigsberg, B. (2017, September 21). Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous. New York Times, p. C10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gilmore, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Gilmore, 2004; Chilingarian & Zolotukhin, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Chilingarian & Zolotukhin, 2015)
Three authors: (Su, Yang, & Zheng, 2014)
6 or more authors: (Currie et al., 2003)

About the journal

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