Introduction to Analysing Morphological Variation

Analyses of morphological disparity provide unique insights into evolutionary history, quantifying the anatomical variety of clades and its fluctuation through time. This course will provide an in-depth overview of the different types of data and methods that underpin these analyses and give participants the necessary skills and understanding to apply them to their own research questions.

Across four days, we will cover the advantages and disadvantages of different types of morphological data, the differences between different types of morphospaces, the range of distance metrics than can be used to measure intertaxon dissimilarity, and how ordination methods can be used to reduce dataset dimensionality and identify patterns.

Contemporary methods for visualising, quantifying, and interpreting patterns in disparity will be covered at length, as will the theory underpinning data ordination, generalized Procrustes analysis, and Fourier shape analysis, both traditional and elliptical. Additionally, we will discuss how simulations can be used to fit models of evolution to empirical data and disentangle genuine evolutionary phenomena from artefacts of sampling and experimental design.

How different types of morphological data are collected will be discussed but will not be included in the practical component of the course.

We will provide a selection of model datasets for participants to use during the practical components of the course. However, we encourage attendees to bring their own datasets so that they can gain experience tailoring the techniques this course will introduce to their own analytical needs right away.

Places are limited to 18 participants.