-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: fledgling grometric morphometrics in Serbia Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:58:20 -0400 From: Chris Klingenberg <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Organization: University of Manchester To: [email protected] Dear Milos I think you certainly can investigate morphological integration with a data set with homogeneous ages. It's what most studies have done (all the ones on mouse mandibles etc.) and the only thing that is possible with insects such as Drosophila... You might want to have a look at the literature. A good entry point is my review from a while ago: http://www.flywings.org.uk/PDF%20files/AnnRevEES2008.pdf There are more papers on my lab web site. Are you in contact with Ana Ivanovic? She has an excellent paper on integration/modularity in newt skulls in press in JEZ(Mol Evol Dev). I'm sure she can advise you. Your sample size is the bigger problem: 39 + 11 is not a very big sample size (I would study integration via pooled within-sex analyses to make the most of the available sample size). And with a reasonable number of landmarks, in 3D, you'll have problems. I think you will need to think about possibilities of expanding your sample size (getting material from additional museums or other collections). I imagine roe deer is hunted in Serbias, as it is in other parts of Europe, and so there must be a supply of sjulls somewhere... If this project is an important part of your PhD, I think this is quite important. Best wishes, Chris On 6/24/2010 9:20 PM, morphmet wrote:
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: fledgling grometric morphometrics in Serbia Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:48:56 -0400 From: Milos Blagojevic <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> There is one problem that i need to address to at the very onset of my morphometrics career...I work with "Morphometrics in R" the most and there are some things i just don`t get right. This is one of them: - Is it meaningful to compute covariation structure among whole objects (roe deer skulls) if there is only sexual structure present in the sample? I have only one population and 39 male and 11 female skulls. They are all approximately of the same age so i can`t think of a good explanation of observed covariation, whether it be between different landmarks, or between whole configurations. Can i test morphological integration somehow? I can extend the sample to include more populations, but it is very difficult to find specimens of all ages, and even more harder to order them systematically. So it is mainly a "horizontal" sample, and my question is about validity of covariation/integration test for whole skull shapes. Kind regards from Serbia, Milos Blagojevic, PhD student and teaching assistant Chordate morphology and systematics Institute for biology and ecology Faculty of science, Kragujevac, Serbia email (Morphmet): [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now. <https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969>
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