How to format your references using the Plant Ecology citation style

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

Fuyuno I (2011) Japan: Will the sun set on Kampo? Nature 480:S96

A journal article with 2 authors

Oki T, Kanae S (2006) Global hydrological cycles and world water resources. Science 313:1068–1072

A journal article with 3 authors

Curry R, Dickson B, Yashayaev I (2003) A change in the freshwater balance of the Atlantic Ocean over the past four decades. Nature 426:826–829

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Swedlow JR, Goldberg I, Brauner E, Sorger PK (2003) Informatics and quantitative analysis in biological imaging. Science 300:100–102

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wiens JA (2016) Ecological Challenges and Conservation Conundrums. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Sachse A (2015) OpenGeoSys-Tutorial: Computational Hydrology I: Groundwater Flow Modeling. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Perna G, Iannone G, Torti T, Caldirola D (2016) Panic Disorder, Is It Really a Mental Disorder? From Body Functions to the Homeostatic Brain. In: Nardi AE, Freire RCR (eds) Panic Disorder: Neurobiological and Treatment Aspects. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 93–112

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 Plant Ecology.

Blog post

Taub B (2016) New Melanoma Drug Hailed As “A Step Forward” In Battle Against Deadly Skin Cancer. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-melanoma-drug-hailed-step-forward-battle-against-deadly-skin-cancer/. Accessed 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 (1986) University Finances: Research Revenues and Expenditures. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Bates K (2017) Drivers of Engagement for Volunteers in a Nonprofit. Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University

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

(nyt) SK (2002) World Briefing | Europe: Belarus: European Official Expelled. New York Times A9

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Fuyuno 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Oki and Kanae 2006; Fuyuno 2011).

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

Two authors: (Oki and Kanae 2006)
Three or more authors: (Swedlow et al. 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Plant Ecology
Abbreviation	Plant Ecol.
ISSN (print)	1385-0237
ISSN (online)	1573-5052
Scope	Plant Science Ecology