How to format your references using the Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Frontiers 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	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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Tobias, P. V. (2003). Paleoanthropology. Encore Olduvai. Science 299, 1193–1194.

A journal article with 2 authors

Roll-Mecak, A., and Vale, R. D. (2008). Structural basis of microtubule severing by the hereditary spastic paraplegia protein spastin. Nature 451, 363–367.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bustamante, C. D., Burchard, E. G., and De la Vega, F. M. (2011). Genomics for the world. Nature 475, 163–165.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kim, W., Zhu, W., Hendricks, G. L., Van Tyne, D., Steele, A. D., Keohane, C. E., et al. (2018). A new class of synthetic retinoid antibiotics effective against bacterial persisters. Nature 556, 103–107.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lu, J., Zhao, X., and Yamada, S. (2016). Harmonic Balance Finite Element Method. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd.

An edited book

Mackey, P. J., Grimsey, E. J., Jones, R. T., and Brooks, G. A. eds. (2016). Celebrating the Megascale: Proceedings of the Extraction and Processing Division Symposium on Pyrometallurgy in Honor of David G.C. Robertson. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Portugali, J. (2012). “Complexity Theories of Cities: Achievements, Criticism and Potentials,” in Complexity Theories of Cities Have Come of Age: An Overview with Implications to Urban Planning and Design, eds. J. Portugali, H. Meyer, E. Stolk, and E. Tan (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer), 47–62.

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 Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Blog post

Andrew, D. (2015). Why Can We See A Woman On Mars? IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/rats-crabs-and-now-woman-mars-nasa-hiding-something-or-are-we-just-seeing-things/ (Accessed October 30, 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 (2012). Information Technology Dashboard: Opportunities Exist to Improve Transparency and Oversight of Investment Risk at Select Agencies. 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

Sydow, K. (2010). A life review and Memory Album program to enhance family communication in assisted living. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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

Brantley, B. (2017). Poetry in Missed Connections. New York Times, C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Tobias, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Tobias, 2003; Roll-Mecak and Vale, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Roll-Mecak and Vale, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Kim et al., 2018)

About the journal

Full journal title	Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Abbreviation	Front. Ecol. Evol.
ISSN (online)	2296-701X
Scope