Morphometrics for Nonmorphometricians (Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences (124))

"Morphometrics is concerned with the study of variations and change in the form (size and shape) of organisms or objects adding a quantitative element to descriptions and thereby facilitating the comparison of different objects and organisms. This volume provides an introduction to morphometrics in a clear and simple way without recourse to complex mathematics and statistics. This introduction is followed by a series of case studies describing the variety of applications of morphometrics from paleontology and evolutionary ecology to archaeological artifacts analysis. This is followed by a presentation of future applications of morphometrics and state of the art software for analyzing and comparing shape."--NHBS Environment Bookstore Front Matter....Pages i-xi Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Why Morphometrics?....Pages 3-7 Morphometrics: An Historical Essay....Pages 9-24 Front Matter....Pages 25-25 Controlling for Curvature in the Quantification of Leaf Form....Pages 27-71 Discriminating Groups of Organisms....Pages 73-91 Visual Analysis in Archaeology. An Artificial Intelligence Approach....Pages 93-156 Evolution of the Upper Cretaceous Oysters: Traditional Morphometrics Approach....Pages 157-176 Front Matter....Pages 177-177 Combining Shape Data and Traditional Measurements with the 2B-PLS: Testing the Covariation Between Avian Brain Size and Cranial Shape Variation as an Example....Pages 179-190 Biogeographic Analysis Using Geometric Morphometrics: Clines in Skull Size and Shape in a Widespread African Arboreal Monkey....Pages 191-217 Stock Identification of Marine Populations....Pages 219-232 Correlating Shape Variation with Feeding Performance to Test for Adaptive Divergence in Recently Invading Stickleback Populations from Swiss peri-alpine Environments....Pages 233-257 Macroevolutionary Trends in the Skull of Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs – The Largest Terrestrial Animals to Have Ever Lived....Pages 259-269 The Use of Geometric Morphometrics in Studying Butterfly Wings in an Evolutionary Ecological Context....Pages 271-287 Towards Automating Artifact Analysis: A Study Showing Potential Applications of Computer Vision and Morphometrics to Artifact Typology....Pages 289-305 Morphometric Analysis Applied to the Archaeological Pottery of the Valley of Guadalquivir....Pages 307-323 Some Applications of Geometric Morphometrics to Archaeology....Pages 325-341 Front Matter....Pages 343-343 Prospectus: The Future of Morphometrics....Pages 345-352 Morphometrics and Cosmology: Short Note and Future Hope....Pages 353-355 Morphometrics in Past: Integrating Morphometrics with General Data Analysis Software....Pages 357-362 Back Matter....Pages 363-367