How to format your references using the Theoretical Ecology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Theoretical 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Pfennig KS (2007) Facultative mate choice drives adaptive hybridization. Science 318:965–967

A journal article with 2 authors

Choi H, So PTC (2014) Improving femtosecond laser pulse delivery through a hollow core photonic crystal fiber for temporally focused two-photon endomicroscopy. Sci Rep 4:6626

A journal article with 3 authors

Diddams SA, Hollberg L, Mbele V (2007) Molecular fingerprinting with the resolved modes of a femtosecond laser frequency comb. Nature 445:627–630

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Lumelsky N, Blondel O, Laeng P, et al (2001) Differentiation of embryonic stem cells to insulin-secreting structures similar to pancreatic islets. Science 292:1389–1394

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Matte GS (2015) Perfusion for Congenital Heart Surgery. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Zaidi SH (2013) Vertigo: A Clinical Guide. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Kaufman MR, Brown TL (2016) AMPK and Placental Progenitor Cells. In: Cordero MD, Viollet B (eds) AMP-activated Protein Kinase. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 73–79

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 Theoretical Ecology.

Blog post

Taub B (2017) Scientists Turn Mice Into Bloodthirsty Predators By Shining Lasers On Their Brains. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/scientists-turn-mice-into-bloodthirsty-predators-shining-lasers-their-brains/. 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 (1992) Transportation Infrastructure: Urban Transportation Planning Can Better Address Modal Trade-offs. 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

Gemmer J (2012) Shape Selection in the non-Euclidean Model of Elasticity. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona

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 (2001) World Briefing | Europe: Abkhazia: Fighting In A Breakaway Region. New York Times A8

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Pfennig 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Pfennig 2007; Choi and So 2014).

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

Two authors: (Choi and So 2014)
Three or more authors: (Lumelsky et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Theoretical Ecology
Abbreviation	Theor. Ecol.
ISSN (print)	1874-1738
ISSN (online)	1874-1746
Scope	Ecological Modelling Ecology