Morphometrics in development and evolution

SYNOPSIS. Morphometric approaches facilitate the analysis of quantitative variation in form, typically becoming most useful for the study of organisms that have completed morphogenesis and arc at differing stages of growth. Recent conceptual and technical refinements in the characterization and comparison of forms have joined methodological innovations in molecular biology, embryology, and phytogeny reconstruction to advance the study of the evolution of development. Among the phenomena that have recently been examined morphometrically are developmental integration and heterochrony, discoveries that in turn raise deeper questions about the connections among disciplines and among levels of description: the relationship between morphometric variables and characters, between phenomenology and process, and the interplay (and evolutionary relevance) of genes and phenotypes. Morphometrics can continue to play a vital role in evolutionary studies of-development as its results generate questions both for its practitioners and for other sorts of biologists to explore.

Duke Scholars

Author V. Louise Roth Biology

Author John M. Mercer Biology