Morphometrics in Encephalartos

Foliicolous microfungi occurring on Encephalartos

Species of Encephalartos, commonly known as bread trees, bread palms or cycads are native to Africa; the genus encompasses more than 60 species and represents an important component of the indigenous African flora. Recently, a leaf blight disease was noted on several E. altensteinii plants growing at the foot of Table Mountain in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens of South Africa. Preliminary i...

Geometric Morphometrics

The field of morphometrics is developing quickly and recent advances allow for geometric techniques to be applied easily to many zoological problems. This article briefly introduces geometric morphometric techniques and then reviews selected areas where those techniques have been applied to questions of general interest. This article is relevant to non-specialists looking for an entry into geom...

Computer morphometrics in craniofacial biology.

The quantification, analysis, prediction and simulation of the growth of the craniofacial complex is discussed in the context of a two-dimensional coordinate model of craniofacial morphology. Data accumulated from lateral X-ray films (cephalograms) are used, in conjunction with the model, to describe and analyze craniofacial growth; to predict the future size of craniofacial structures, the fut...

Towards digital soil morphometrics

Geometric morphometrics and phylogeny

This paper reviews some of the important properties of geometric morphometric shape variables and discusses the advantages and limitations of the use of such data in studies of phylogeny. A method for fitting morphometric data to a phylogeny (i.e., estimating ancestral states of the shape variables) is presented using the squared-change parsimony criterion for estimation. These results are then...