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Advances in insectivore and rodent systematics due to geometric morphometrics
Author(s) -
BARČIOVÁ LENKA
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
mammal review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.574
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1365-2907
pISSN - 0305-1838
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2907.2009.00139.x
Subject(s) - morphometrics , systematics , insectivore , biology , variation (astronomy) , landmark , apodemus , zoology , ecology , evolutionary biology , geography , taxonomy (biology) , cartography , habitat , physics , astrophysics
1 Morphometrics, the study of the variation and change in form amongst organisms, serves as a basic methodological tool in various fields of biological research, including systematics. Because it includes information about spatial relationships amongst anatomical landmarks, geometric morphometrics is more suitable for analyzing morphometric variation than methods based on distance measurements. 2 Geometric morphometrics allows us to answer general ecological and evolutionary questions about shape. 3 In this paper, landmark‐based methods are described and illustrated, based on a dataset of measurements from 295 Apodemus mandibles, and the applications of such methods in the systematics of insectivores (Eulipotyphla) and rodents (Rodentia) are summarized.