How to format your references using the Population Ecology citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Gelfand M (2013) What is to be done about Russian science? Nature 500:379
A journal article with 2 authors
Bechler ME, ffrench-Constant C (2014) Neuroscience. A new wrap for neuronal activity? Science 344:480–481
A journal article with 3 authors
Drinnenberg IA, Fink GR, Bartel DP (2011) Compatibility with killer explains the rise of RNAi-deficient fungi. Science 333:1592
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Brandl K, Plitas G, Mihu CN, et al (2008) Vancomycin-resistant enterococci exploit antibiotic-induced innate immune deficits. Nature 455:804–807

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Flynn JR (2012) How to Improve Your Mind. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK
An edited book
Capasso V (2015) An Introduction to Continuous-Time Stochastic Processes: Theory, Models, and Applications to Finance, Biology, and Medicine, 3rd ed. 2015. Springer, New York, NY
A chapter in an edited book
Lee WB, Shek V, Cheung B (2007) Auditing and Mapping the Knowledge Assets of Business Processes – An Empirical Study. In: Zhang Z, Siekmann J (eds) Knowledge Science, Engineering and Management: Second International Conference, KSEM 2007, Melbourne, Australia, November 28-30, 2007. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 11–16

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 Population Ecology.

Blog post
Andrews R (2015) Check Out This Great Footage Of Space Junk “WT1190F” Burning Up In Atmosphere. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/aerial-scientists-spot-space-junk-wt1190f-burning-atmosphere/. 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) Federal Funding Mechanisms in Support of University Research. 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
Choi KK (2010) Conspiracy and alternative crimes in the Military Commissions Act of 2009: Is There a Way Out? Doctoral dissertation, George Washington 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
Yablonsky L (2008) The Hebrew School. New York Times M280

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gelfand 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Gelfand 2013; Bechler and ffrench-Constant 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Bechler and ffrench-Constant 2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Brandl et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titlePopulation Ecology
AbbreviationPopul. Ecol.
ISSN (print)1438-3896
ISSN (online)1438-390X
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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