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Morphology predicting ecology: incorporating new methodological and analytical approaches

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Abstract

Associations between the morphology of animals and their ecology have contributed to our understanding of phenotypic diversity by helping to relate form and function. Most early studies on fishes used traditional measurements of linear distances on the body or fins to quantify morphological variation among taxa. More recently, geometric morphometric analyses have gained popularity for assessing phenotypic shape variation. Along with new methodologies for quantifying morphological variation, researchers have become increasingly aware of the influence of phylogeny on morphological and ecological traits. Our study, which spanned seven cyprinid genera, assessed the abilities of traditional and geometric morphometric approaches to characterize ecologically relevant morphological variation. Furthermore, we compared morphometric approaches employing two analyses (partial Mantel test and Phylogenetic Canonical Correlation Analysis (PCCA)) that test for correlations among data sets while explicitly accounting for phylogenetic relationships. Traditional morphology and body shape showed similar correlations with habitat use in all analyses. In contrast, only traditional morphology was correlated with diet; however, this was only revealed by the PCCA. Our findings indicated the taxonomic span of species under study and the statistical treatment of data are important factors to consider when choosing between traditional or geometric morphometric approaches. In addition, a better understanding of phylogenetic relationships will improve our ability to establish associations between morphology and ecology.

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Acknowledgments

We thank W.J. Matthews for spurring this research, providing the history of traditional morphometrics, for generously sharing his specimens and data, and for comments that substantially improved the manuscript. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions for improvement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73019, USA

    Nathan R. Franssen & Christopher G. Goodchild

  2. Department of Biology and Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    Nathan R. Franssen

  3. Department of Marine Sciences, University of New England, Biddeford, ME, 04005, USA

    Christopher G. Goodchild

  4. Department of Biology, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, 72035, USA

    Donald B. Shepard

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  1. Nathan R. Franssen
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Correspondence to Nathan R. Franssen.

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Franssen, N.R., Goodchild, C.G. & Shepard, D.B. Morphology predicting ecology: incorporating new methodological and analytical approaches. Environ Biol Fish 98, 713–724 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-014-0306-z

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