How to format your references using the Molecular Ecology citation style

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

Smaglik, P. (2001). US structural genomics effort needs physicists for success. Nature, 410(6829), 723–724.

A journal article with 2 authors

Roth, S., & Panfilio, K. A. (2012). Development. Making waves for segments. Science (New York, N.Y.), 336(6079), 306–307.

A journal article with 3 authors

Murray, B., Huntress, W. T., Jr, & Friedman, L. D. (2001). Mars outposts: a planetary society approach to exploration. Nature, 412(6843), 254–255.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Rotenberg, E., Theis, W., Horn, K., & Gille, P. (2000). Quasicrystalline valence bands in decagonal AlNiCo. Nature, 406(6796), 602–605.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tolin, D. F., Worden, B. L., Wootton, B. M., & Gilliam, C. M. (2017). CBT for Hoarding Disorder. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Giese, H. (Ed.). (2008). Models in Software Engineering: Workshops and Symposia at MoDELS 2007, Nashville, TN, USA, September 30 - October 5, 2007, Reports and Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

James, J. W. (2009). Discussion. In J. van der Werf, H.-U. Graser, R. Frankham, & C. Gondro (Eds.), Adaptation and Fitness in Animal Populations: Evolutionary and Breeding Perspectives on Genetic Resource Management (pp. 53–55). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 Molecular Ecology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, August 9). Let’s Face It: Gender Bias In Academia Is For Real.

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. (1991). FAA Information Resources: Agency Needs to Correct Widespread Deficiencies (No. IMTEC-91-43). 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

Slabaugh, J. L. (2012). The Occurrence of Alternans and Arrhythmias in a Multicellular, Cardiac Preparation (Doctoral dissertation). Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

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

Greenhouse, L. (2011, January 23). Legacy Of A Fence. New York Times, p. WK11.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Roth & Panfilio, 2012; Smaglik, 2001).

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

Two authors: (Roth & Panfilio, 2012)
Three authors: (Murray, Huntress, & Friedman, 2001)
6 or more authors: (Rotenberg, Theis, Horn, & Gille, 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Molecular Ecology
Abbreviation	Mol. Ecol.
ISSN (print)	0962-1083
ISSN (online)	1365-294X
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Genetics