Hello, 

for some time I am trying to figure out the most proper design for my 
study and greatly appreciate any comments. 

I want to study intraspecific geographic morphological variation in
mysid shrimps (Mysis relicta) and correlate/compare it with the
presumably neutral molecular variation (estimated from allozymes and
mitochondrial DNA gene sequence) and certain ecological variables (e.g.
latitude, depth, size, nutrient conditions of the lake, its age and
drainage basin). I plan to include about 10-15 populations distributed
in N. American lakes, and for the beginning use about 10 specimens from
one population. 

>From the pilot studies I expect the morphological differences among
populations to be comparatively small. In order to get the best estimate
of overall differentiation and analyse response of different
shapes/characters I intend to evaluate about 50 characters, both linear
measurements from articulated structues and data from landmarks on 2 or
3 structures (6-9 landmarks on each). 

I have two questions related to this study: 

1. What is the best way to analyse landmark data, if I want to compare
within to between population variance and to get ordination of
populations (I expect that variation will be small). What is a
difference of using multivariate statistical analysis on the residuals
after Procrustes superimposion or on the matrix of partial warp
scores+uniform component (in addition to statistical power - Rohlf 
2000)?

2. I first plan to compare differentiation of different shapes and
linear measurements separately, but -- is there any proper way to
combine data from landmarks and linear measurements to obtain overall
measure of differentiation among populations? For example, would it be
possible to combine matrices of partial warp scores from different
structures and presumably "size-free" linear measurements (e.g.
residuals of raw data to regression on PC1) into one matrix 
and use it for PCA or other analysis?

many thanks in advance 
Asta

**
Asta Audzijonyte (PhD student)
Department of Ecology and Systematics &
Finnish Musuem of Natural History 
University of Helsinki, Finland
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
==
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